■     ■■  -■  ..."  ■ 


BALTIMORE 

EXTRACT  FROM  THE  RULES. 

5.  Brothers  have  the  privilege  of  taking  out  of  the  Library 
one  volume  of  more  than  500  pages,  or  two  volumes,  if  each 
contains  less  than  500  pages. 

6.  Brothers  shall  not  detain  a  book  more  than  two  weeks, 
though  they  can  have  the  privilege  of  renewing  any  work 
once,  provided  no  brother  has  notified  the  Librarian  that  he 
wants  it.  If  such  notice  be  left  with  the  Librarian,  the 
brother  who  is  in  possession  of  the  work  must  return  it 
within  the  space  of  one  week  after  the  renewal.  No  bro- 
ther returning  a  book  to  the  Library,  after  a  renewal,  can 
take  out  the  same  until  one  week  has  expired. 

7.  Should  a  brother  keep  out  a  work  longer  than  two 
weeks,  or  should  he  refuse  or  neglect  to  return,  at  the  pre- 
scribed time,  a  book  called  for  by  another  brother,  he  shall 
pay  a  fine  of  10  cents  for  each  and  every  week  thereafter, 
and  be  deprived  of  the  use  of  the  Library  until  said  line  be 
paid,  unless  such  fine  be  remitted  by  the  Board  of  Directors. 

8.  If  any  brother  lose  or  injure  a  book,  he  shall  make  the 
same  good  to  the  Library :  and  if  the  book  be  one  of  a  set, 
he  shall  upon  rendering  payment  for  the  whole,  be  entitled 
to  the  remaining  volumes. 

it.  Xo  brother  shall  loan  a  book  belonging  to  the  Library 
out  of  his  household. 


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Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

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http://www.archive.org/details/emilybronterobinOOrobiiala 


JFamoue;  (Kaameiu 


EMILY    BRONTE. 


The  next  volumes  in  the  Famous  Women  Series 
will  be: 

Sarah  and  Angelina  Grimke.    By  Mrs. 

Birney. 
Anne  Bradstreet.    By  Helen  Campbell. 

Already  published : 

George  Eliot.     By  Miss  Blind. 
Emily  Bronte.     By  Miss  Robinson. 
George  Sand.     By  Miss  Thomas. 
Mary  Lamb.     By  Mrs.  Gilchrist. 
Margaret  Fuller.     By  Julia  Ward  Howe. 
Maria  Edgeworth.     By  Miss  Zimmern. 


Emily  Bronte. 


BY 


A.   MARY    F.   ROBINSON. 


BOSTON: 

ROBERTS     BROTHERS. 

1883. 


Copyright,  1883, 
By  Roberts  Brothers. 


651  oz£" 


University  Press: 
John  Wilson  and  Son,  Cambridge. 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter  Page 

Introduction i 

I.  Parentage 10 

II.  Babyhood 24 

III.  Cowan's  Bridge 38 

IV.  Childhood 54 

V.    Going  to  School 71 

VI.    Girlhood  at  Haworth 82 

VII.    In  the  Rue  D'Isabelle 104 

VIII.    A  Retrospect 123 

IX.    The  Recall W 

X.    The  Prospectuses 148 

XI.    Branwell's  Fall I55 

XII.    Writing  Poetry *72 

XIII.  Troubles J92 

XIV.  'Wuthering  Heights:'  its  Origin     ...  206 
XV.  'Wuthering  Heights:'  the  Story     ...  225 

XVI.    'Shirley' 2§I 

XVII.    Branwell's  End 29* 

XVIII.    Emily's  Death 298 

Finis! 3" 


LIST    OF    AUTHORITIES. 


1846-56.    The  Works  of  Currer,  Ellis,  and  Acton 
Bell. 

1857.     Life  of  Charlotte  Bronte.    Mrs.  Gaskell, 
1st  and  2nd  Editions. 

1877.     Charlotte  Bronte.     T.  Wemyss  Reid. 

1877.     Note  on  Charlotte  Bronte.    A.  C.  Swin- 
burne. 

188 1.    Three  Great  Englishwomen.    P.  Bayne. 
MS.  Lecture  on  Emily  Bronte.    T.  Wemyss 

Reid. 
MS.    Notes     on  Emily    and    Charlotte 

Bronte.     Miss  Ellen  Nussey. 
MS.  Letters  of  Charlotte  and  Branwell 
Bronte. 

1879.    Reminiscences  of  the  Brontes.  Miss  Ellen 
Nussey. 

1870.    Unpublished  Letters  of  Charlotte,  Em- 
ily, and  Anne  Bronte.    Hours  at  Home. 

1846.    Emily  Bronte's  Annotated  Copy  of  her 
Poems. 


viii  LIST  OF  AUTHORITIES. 

1872.    Bran  well    Bronte  :    in    the     «  Mirror.' 
G.  S.  Phillips. 

1879.    Pictures  of  the  Past.    F.  H.  Grundy. 

1830.    Prospectus  of  the  Clergymen's  Daugh- 
ters' School  at  Cowan's  Bridge. 

185a     Preface  to  'Wuthering  Heights.'    Char- 
lotte Bronte. 

Ibid.    Biographical  Notice  of  Ellis  and  Acton 
Bell.     Charlotte  Bronte. 

Ibid.  'Wuthering  Heights:'  in  the  'Palla- 
dium.' Sydney  Dobell. 
Personal  Reminiscences  of  Mrs.  Wood, 
Mrs.  Ratcliffe,  Mrs.  Brown,  and  Mr. 
William  Wood,  of  Haworth. 
1811-18.  Poems  of  Patrick  Bronte,  B.A.,  Incum- 
bent of  Haworth. 

1879.    Haworth:  Past  and  Present.    J.Horsfall 
Turner. 


EMILY     BRONTE. 


INTRODUCTION. 

There  are,  perhaps,  few  tests  of  excellence  so 
sure  as  the  popular  verdict  on  a  work  of  art 
a  hundred  years  after  its  accomplishment.  So 
much  time  must  be  allowed  for  the  swing  and 
rebound  of  taste,  for  the  despoiling  of  tawdry- 
splendors  and  to  permit  the  work  of  art  itself  to 
form  a  public  capable  of  appreciating  it.  Such 
marvellous  fragments  reach  us  of  Elizabethan 
praises  ;  and  we  cannot  help  recalling  the  num- 
ber of  copies  of  '  Prometheus  Unbound  '  sold  in 
the  lifetime  of  the  poet.  We  know  too  well 
"  what  porridge  had  John  Keats,"  and  remember 
with  misgiving  the  turtle  to  which  we  treated 
Hobbs  and  Nobbs  at  dinner,  and  how  compla- 
cently we  watched  them  put  on  their  laurels 
afterwards. 

Let  us,  then,  by  all  means  distrust  our  own 
and  the  public  estimation  of  all  heroes  dead 
within  a  hundred  years.     Let  us,  in  laying  claim 


2  EMILY  BRONTE. 

to  an  infallible  verdict,  remember  how  oddly  our 
decisions  sound  at  the  other  side  of  Time's  whis- 
pering-gallery. Shall  we  therefore  pronounce 
only  on  Chaucer  and  Shakespeare,  on  Gower  and 
our  learned  Ben  ?  Alas !  we  are  too  sure  of 
their  relative  merits  ;  we  stake  our  reputations 
with  no  qualms,  no  battle-ardors.  These  we 
reserve  to  them  for  whom  the  future  is  not  yet 
secure,  for  whom  a  timely  word  may  still  be 
spoken,  for  whom  we  yet  may  feel  that  lancing 
out  of  enthusiasm  only  possible  when  the  cast  of 
fate  is  still  unknown,  and,  as  we  fight,  we  fancy 
that  the  glory  of  our  hero  is  in  our  hands. 

But  very  gradually  the  victory  is  gained.  A 
taste  is  unconsciously  formed  for  the  qualities 
necessary  to  the  next  development  of  art  — 
qualities  which  Blake  in  his  garret,  Millet  with- 
out the  sou,  set  down  in  immortal  work.  At 
last,  when  the  time  is  ripe,  some  connoisseur 
sees  the  picture,  blows  the  dust  from  the  book, 
and  straightway  blazons  his  discovery.  Mr. 
Swinburne,  so  to  speak,  blew  the  dust  from 
'  Wuthering  Heights ; '  and  now  it  keeps  its 
proper  rank  in  the  shelf  where  Coleridge  and 
Webster,  Hoffmann  and  Leopardi,  have  their 
place.  Until  then,  a  few  brave  lines  of  welcome 
from  Sydney  Dobell,  one  fine  verse  of  Mr. 
Arnold's,  one  notice  from  Mr.  Reid,  was  all  the 
praise  that  had  been  given  to  the  book  by  those 


INTRODUCTION.  3 

in  authority.  Here  and  there  a  mill-girl  in  the 
West  Riding  factories  read  and  re-read  the  tat- 
tered copy  from  the  lending  library  ;  here  and 
there  some  eager,  unsatisfied,  passionate  child 
came  upon  the  book  and  loved  it,  in  spite  of 
chiding,  finding  in  it  an  imagination  that  satis- 
fied, and  a  storm  that  cleared  the  air ;  or  some 
strong-fibred  heart  felt  without  a  shudder  the 
justice  of  that  stern  vision  of  inevitable,  inherited 
ruin  following  the  chance-found  child  of  foreign 
sailor  and  seaport  mother.  But  these  readers 
were  not  many ;  even  yet  the  book  is  not 
popular. 

For,  in  truth,  the  qualities  that  distinguish 
Emily  Bronte  are  not  those  which  are  of  the 
first  necessity  to  a  novelist.  She  is  without  ex- 
perience ;  her  range  of  character  is  narrow  and 
local ;  she  has  no  atmosphere  of  broad  humanity 
like  George  Eliot ;  she  has  not  Jane  Austen's 
happy  gift  of  making  us  love  in  a  book  what  we 
have  overlooked  in  life  \  we  do  not  recognize  in 
her  the  human  truth  and  passion,  the  never- 
failing  serene  bitterness  of  humor,  that  have 
made  for  Charlotte  Bronte  a  place  between  Cer- 
vantes and  Victor  Hugo. 

Emily  Bronte  is  of  a  different  class.  Her 
imagination  is  narrower,  but  more  intense ;  she 
sees  less,  but  what  she  sees  is  absolutely  pres- 
ent :    no  writer   has  described    the   moors,  the 


4  EMILY  BRONTE. 

wind,  the  skies,  with  her  passionate  fidelity, 
but  this  is  all  of  Nature  that  she  describes. 
Her  narrow  fervid  nature  accounted  as  simple 
annoyance  the  trivial  scenes  and  personages 
touched  with  immortal  sympathy  and  humor  in 
'  Villette '  and  '  Shirley  ; '  Paul  Emanuel  himself 
appeared  to  her  only  as  a  pedantic  and  exacting 
taskmaster ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  to  a  certain 
class  of  mind,  there  is  nothing  in  fiction  so  mov- 
ing as  the  spectacle  of  Heathcliff  dying  of  joy  — 
an  unnatural,  unreal  joy  —  his  panther  nature 
paralyzed,  aneanti,  in  a  delirium  of  visionary 
bliss. 

Only  an  imagination  of  the  rarest  power  could 
conceive  such  a  denouement,  requiting  a  life  of 
black  ingratitude  by  no  mere  common  horrors, 
no  vulgar  Bedlam  frenzy  ;  but  by  the  torturing 
apprehension  of  a  happiness  never  quite  grasped, 
always  just  beyond  the  verge  of  realization.  Only 
an  imagination  of  the  finest  and  rarest  touch, 
absolutely  certain  of  tread  on  that  path  of  a 
single  hair  which  alone  connects  this  world  with 
the  land  of  dreams.  Few  have  trod  that  perilous 
bridge  with  the  fearlessness  of  Em.jy  Bronte : 
that  is  her  own  ground  and  there  she  wins  our 
highest  praise ;  but  place  her  on  the  earth,  ask 
her  to  interpret  for  us  the  common  lives  of  the 
surrounding  people,  she  can  give  no  answer. 
The   swift  and   certain   spirit  moves  with   the 


INTROD  UCTION. 


5 


clumsy  hesitating  gait  of  a  bird  accustomed  to 
soar. 

She  tells  us  what  she  saw ;  and  what  she  saw 
and  what  she  was  incapable  of  seeing  are  equally 
characteristic.  All  the  wildness  of  that  moor- 
land, all  the  secrets  of  those  lonely  farms,  all 
the  capabilities  of  the  one  tragedy  of  passion 
and  weakness  that  touched  her  solitary  life,  she 
divined  and  appropriated :  but  not  the  life  of 
the  village  at  her  feet,  not  the  bustle  of  the 
mills,  the  riots,  the  sudden  alternations  of  wealth 
and  poverty,  not  the  incessant  rivalry  of  church 
and  chapel ;  and  while  the  West  Riding  has 
known  the  prototype  of  nearly  every  person  and 
nearly  every  place  in  '  Jane  Eyre '  and  '  Shirley,' 
not  a  single  character  in  '  Wuthering  Heights ' 
ever  climbed  the  hills  round  Haworth. 

Say  that  two  foreigners  have  passed  through 
Staffordshire,  leaving  us  their  reports  of  what 
they  have  seen.  The  first,  going  by  day,  will 
tell  us  of  the  hideous  blackness  of  the  country, 
but  yet  more,  no  doubt,  of  that  awful,  patient 
struggle  of  man  with  fire  and  darkness,  of  the 
grim  courage  of  those  unknown  lives ;  and  he 
would  see  what  they  toil  for,  women  with  little 
children  in  their  arms  ;  and  he  would  notice  the 
blue  sky  beyond  the  smoke,  doubly  precious  for 
such  horrible  environment.  But  the  second  trav- 
eller has  journeyed  through  the  night ;  neither 


6  EMILY  BRONTE. 

squalor  nor  ugliness,  neither  sky  nor  children, 
has  he  seen,  only  a  vast  stretch  of  blackness  shot 
through  with  flaming  fires,  or  here  and  there 
burned  to  a  dull  red  by  heated  furnaces ;  and 
before  these,  strange  toilers,  half  naked,  scarcely 
human,  and  red  in  the  leaping  flicker  and  gleam 
of  the  fire.  The  meaning  of  their  work  he  could 
not  see,  but  a  fearful  and  impressive  phantasma- 
goria of  flame  and  blackness  and  fiery  energies 
at  work  in  the  encompassing  night. 

So  differently  did  the  black  country  of  this 
world  appear  to  Charlotte,  clear-seeing  and  com- 
passionate, and  to  Emily  Bronte,  a  traveller 
through  the  shadows.  Each  faithfully  recorded 
what  she  saw,  and  the  place  was  the  same,  but 
how  unlike  the  vision  !  The  spectacles  of  tem- 
perament color  the  world  very  differently  for  each 
beholder ;  and,  to  understand  the  vision,  we  too 
should  for  a  moment  look  through  the  seer's 
glass.  To  gain  some  such  transient  glance,  to 
gain  and  give  some  such  momentary  insight  into 
the  character  of  Emily  Bronte,  has  been  the  aim 
I  have  tried  to  make  in  this  book.  That  I  have 
not  fulfilled  my  desire  is  perhaps  inevitable  — 
the  task  has  been  left  too  long.  If  I  have  done 
anything  at  all  I  feel  that  much  of  the  reward  is 
due  to  my  many  and  generous  helpers.  Fore- 
most among  them  I  must  thank  Dr.  Ingham,  my 
kind  host  at  Haworth,  Mrs.  Wood,  Mr.  William 


INTRODUCTION.  y 

Wood,  Mrs.  Brown,  and  Mrs.  Ratcliffe  of  that 
parish  —  all  of  whom  had  known  the  now  per- 
ished family  of  Bronte  ;  and  my  thanks  are  due 
no  less  to  Mr.  T.  Wemyss  Reid,  as  will  be  seen 
further  on,  to  Mr.  J.  H.  Ingram,  and  to  Mr. 
Biddell,  who  have  collected  much  valuable  infor- 
mation for  my  benefit ;  and  most  of  all  do  I  owe 
gratitude  and  thankfulness  to  Miss  Ellen  Nussey, 
without  whose  generous  help  my  work  must  have 
remained  most  ignorant  and  astray.  To  her,  had 
it  been  worthier,  had  it  been  all  the  subject 
merits,  and  yet  without  those  shadows  of  gloom 
and  trouble  enjoined  by  the  nature  of  the  story ; 
to  her,  could  I  only  have  spoken  of  the  high 
noble  character  of  Emily  Bronte  and  not  of  the 
great  trials  of  her  life,  I  should  have  ventured  to 
dedicate  this  study.  But  to  Emily's  friend  I  only 
offer  what,  through  her,  I  have  learned  of  Emily; 
she,  who  knew  so  little  of  Branwell's  shames  and 
sorrow,  is  unconcerned  with  this,  their  sad  and 
necessary  record.  Only  the  lights  and  sunshine 
of  my  work  I  dedicate  to  her.  It  may  be  that  I 
have  given  too  great  a  share  to  the  shadows, 
to  the  manifold  follies  and  failures  of  Bran  well 
Bronte.  Yet  in  Emily  Bronte's  life  the  shaping 
influences  were  so  few,  and  the  sins  of  this  be- 
loved and  erring  brother  had  so  large  a  share  in 
determining  the  bent  of  her  genius,  that  to  have 
passed  them  by  would  have  been  to  ignore  the 


8  EMILY  BRONTE. 

shock  which  turned  the  fantasy  of  the  '  Poems ' 
into  the  tragedy  of  '  Wuthering  Heights.'  It 
would  have  been  to  leave  untold  the  patience, 
the  courage,  the  unselfishness,  which  perfected 
Emily  Bronte's  heroic  character,  and  to  have 
left  her  burdened  with  the  calumny  of  having 
chosen  to  invent  the  crimes  and  violence  of  her 
dramatis  personce.  Not  so,  alas !  They  were 
but  reflected  from  the  passion  and  sorrow  that 
darkened  her  home ;  it  was  no  perverse  fancy 
which  drove  that  pure  and  innocent  girl  into 
ceaseless  brooding  on  the  conquering  force  of 
sin  and  the  supremacy  of  injustice. 

She  brooded  over  the  problem  night  and  day ; 
she  took  its  difficulties  passionately  to  heart ;  in 
the  midst  of  her  troubled  thoughts  she  wrote 
'Wuthering  Heights.'  From  the  clear  spirit 
which  inspires  the  end  of  her  work,  we  know 
that  the  storm  is  over ;  we  know  that  her  next 
tragedy  would  be  less  violent.  But  we  shall 
never  see  it;  for — and  it  is  by  this  that  most 
of  us  remember  her  —  suddenly  and  silently  she 
died. 

She  died,  before  a  single  word  of  worthy  praise 
had  reached  her.  She  died  with  her  work  mis- 
understood and  neglected.  And  yet  not  un- 
happy. For  her  home  on  the  moors  was  very 
dear  to  her ;  the  least  and  homeliest  duties 
pleasant ;    she  loved  her   sisters   with  devoted 


INTRODUCTION.  g 

friendship,  and  she  had  many  little  happinesses 
in  her  patient,  cheerful,  unselfish  life.  Would 
that  I  could  show  her  as  she  was !  —  not  the 
austere  and  violent  poetess  who,  cuckoo-fashion, 
has  usurped  her  place ;  but  brave  to  fate  and 
timid  of  man  ;  stern  to  herself,  forbearing,  to  all 
weak  and  erring  things  ;  silent,  yet  sometimes 
sparkling  with  happy  sallies.  For  to  represent 
her  as  she  was  would  be  her  noblest  and  most 
fitting  monument. 


CHAPTER   I. 


PARENTAGE. 


Emily  Bronte  was  born  of  parents  without 
any  peculiar  talent  for  literature.  It  is  true 
that  her  mother's  letters  are  precisely  and  pret- 
tily written.  It  is  true  that  her  father  pub- 
lished a  few  tracts  and  religious  poems.  But  in 
neither  case  is  there  any  vestige  of  literary  or 
poetical  endowment.  Few,  indeed,  are  the  Par- 
ish Magazines  which  could  not  show  among 
their  contents  poems  and  articles  greatly  supe- 
rior to  the  weak  and  characterless  effusions  of 
the  father  of  the  Brontes.  The  fact  seems  im- 
portant ;  because  in  this  case  not  one  member 
of  a  family,  but  a  whole  family,  is  endowed  in 
more  or  less  degree  with  faculties  not  derived 
from  either  parent. 

For  children  may  inherit  genius  from  parents 
who  are  themselves  not  gifted,  as  two  streaming 
currents  of  air  unite  to  form  a  liquid  with  prop- 
erties different  from  either ;  and  never  is  biog- 
raphy more  valuable  than  when  it  allows  us 
to  perceive  by  what  combination  of  allied  quali- 


PARENTAGE.  \\ 

ties,  friction  of  opposing  temperaments,  recur- 
rence of  ancestral  traits,  the  subtle  thing  we 
call  character  is  determined.  In  this  case,  since, 
as  I  have  said,  the  whole  family  manifested  a 
brilliance  not  to  be  found  in  either  parent,  such 
a  study  would  be  peculiarly  interesting.  But, 
unfortunately,  the  history  of  the  children's  father 
and  the  constitution  of  the  children's  mother  is 
all  that  is  clear  to  our  investigation. 

Yet  even  out  of  this  very  short  pedigree  two 
important  factors  of  genius  declare  themselves 
—  two  potent  and  shaping  inheritances.  From 
their  father,  Currer,  Ellis,  and  Acton  derived  a 
strong  will ;  from  their  mother,  the  disease  that 
slew  Emily  and  Anne  in  the  prime  of  their  youth 
and  made  Charlotte  always  delicate  and  ailing. 
In  both  cases  the  boy,  Patrick  Branwell,  was  very 
slightly  affected ;  but  he  too  died  young,  from 
excesses  that  suggest  a  taint  of  insanity  in  his 
constitution. 

Insanity  and  genius  stand  on  either  side  con- 
sumption, its  worse  and  better  angels.  Let 
none  call  it  impious  or  absurd  to  rank  the 
greatest  gift  to  mankind  as  the  occasional  result 
of  an  inherited  tendency  to  tubercular  disease. 
There  are  of  course  very  many  other  determin- 
ing causes ;  yet  is  it  certain  that  inherited 
scrofula  or  phthisis  may  come  out,  not  in  these 
diseases,  or  not  only  in  these  diseases,  but  in  an 


12  EMILY  BROA'TE. 

alteration,  for  better  or  for  worse,  of  the  condi- 
tion of  the  mind.  Out  of  evil  good  may  come, 
or  a  worse  evil. 

The  children's  father  was  a  nervous,  irritable, 
and  violent  man,  who  endowed  them  with  a  ner- 
vous organization  easily  disturbed  and  an  in- 
domitable force  of  volition.  The  girls,  at  least, 
showed  both  these  characteristics.  Patrick 
Bran  well  must  have  been  a  weaker,  more  bril- 
liant, more  violent,  less  tenacious,  less  upright 
copy  of  his  father  ;  and  seems  to  have  suffered 
no  modification  from  the  patient  and  steadfast 
moral  nature  of  his  mother.  She  was  the  model 
that  her  daughters  copied,  in  different  degrees, 
both  in  character  and  health.  Passion  and  will 
their  father  gave  them.  Their  genius  came 
directly  from  neither  parent,  but  from  the  con- 
stitution of  their  natures. 

In  addition,  on  both  sides,  the  children  got  a 
Celtic  strain  ;  and  this  is  a  matter  of  signifi- 
cance, meaning  a  predisposition  to  the  supersti- 
tion, imagination,  and  horror  that  is  a  strand  in 
all  their  work.  Their  mother,  Maria  Branwell, 
was  of  a  good  middle-class  Cornish  family,  long 
established  as  merchants  in  Penzance.  Their 
father  was  the  son  of  an  Irish  peasant,  Hugh 
Prunty,  settled  in  the  north  of  Ireland,  but 
native  to  the  south. 

The  history  of  the  Rev.  Patrick  Bronte,  B.A. 


PARENTAGE.  1 3 

(whose  fine  Greek  name,  shortened  from  the 
ancient  Irish  appellation  of  Bronterre,  was  so 
na'fvely  admired  by  his  children),  is  itself  a  re- 
markable and  interesting  story. 

The  Reverend  Patrick  Bronte  was  one  of  the 
ten  children  of  a  peasant  proprietor  at  Ahaderg 
in  county  Down.  The  family  to  which  he  be- 
longed inherited  strength,  good  looks,  and  a  few 
scant  acres  of  potato-growing  soil.  They  must 
have  been  very  poor,  those  ten  children,  often 
hungry,  cold,  and  wet ;  but  these  adverse  influ- 
ences only  seemed  to  brace  the  sinews  of  Patrick 
Prunty  and  to  nerve  his  determination  to  rise 
above  his  surroundings.  He  grew  up  a  tall  and 
strong  young  fellow,  unusually  handsome,  with 
a  well-shaped  head,  regular  profile,  and  fine  blue 
eyes.  A  vivacious,  impressible  manner  effectu- 
ally masked  a  certain  selfishness  and  rigor  of 
temperament  which  became  plain  in  after  years. 
He  seemed  a  generous,  quick,  impulsive  lad. 
When  he  was  sixteen  years  of  age  Patrick  left 
his  father's  roof,  resolved  to  earn  a  position  for 
himself.  At  Drumgooland,  a  neighboring  ham- 
let, he  opened  what  is  called  in  Ireland  a  public 
school ;  a  sort  of  hedge-school  for  village  chil- 
dren. He  stuck  to  his  trade  for  five  or  six 
years,  using  his  leisure  to  perfect  himself  in 
general  knowledge,  mathematics,  and  a  smatter- 
ing of  Greek  and  Latin. 


14 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


His  efforts  deserved  to  be  crowned  with  suc- 
cess. The  Rev.  Mr.  Tighe,  the  clergyman  of 
the  parish,  was  so  struck  with  Patrick  Prunty's 
determination  and  ability  that  he  advised  him 
to  try  for  admittance  at  one  of  the  English  uni- 
versities ;  and  when  the  young  man  was  about 
five-and-twenty  he  went,  with  Mr.  Tighe's  help, 
to  Cambridge,  and  entered  at  St.  John's. 

He  left  Ireland  in  July,  1802,  never  to  visit  it 
again.  He  never  cared  to  look  again  on  the 
scenes  of  his  early  struggle.  He  never  found 
the  means  to  revisit  mother  or  home,  friends  or 
country.  Between  Patrick  Bronte,  proud  of  his 
Greek  profile  and  his  Greek  name,  the  hand- 
some undergraduate  at  St.  John's,  and  the  nine 
shoeless,  hungry  young  Pruntys  of  Ahaderg, 
there  stretched  a  distance  not  to  be  measured 
by  miles.  Under  his  warm  and  passionate  ex- 
terior a  fixed  resolution  to  get  on  in  the  world  was 
hidden  ;  but,  though  cold,  the  young  man  was 
just  and  self-denying,  and  as  long  as  his  mother 
lived  she  received  twenty  pounds  a  year,  spared 
with  difficulty  from  his  narrow  income. 

Patrick  Bronte  stayed  four  years  at  Cam- 
bridge ;  when  he  left  he  had  dropped  his  Irish 
accent  and  taken  his  B.A.  On  leaving  St. 
John's  he  was  ordained  to  a  curacy  in  Essex. 

The  young  man's  energy,  of  the  sort  that  only 
toils  to  reach  a  given  personal  end,  had  carried 


PARENTAGE.  1 5 

him  far  on  the  way  to  success.  At  twenty, 
hedge-schoolmaster  at  Drumgooland,  Patrick 
Bronte  was  at  thirty  a  respectable  clergyman 
of  the  Church  of  England,  with  an  assured  posi- 
tion and  respectable  clerical  acquaintance.  He 
was  getting  very  near  the  goal. 

He  did  not  stay  long  in  Essex.  A  better 
curacy  was  offered  to  him  at  Hartshead,  a  little 
village  between  Huddersfield  and  Halifax  in 
Yorkshire.  While  he  was  at  Hartshead  the 
handsome  inflammable  Irish  curate  met  Maria 
Branwell  at  her  uncle's  parsonage  near  Leeds. 
It  was  not  the  first  time  that  Patrick  Bronte  had 
fallen  in  love ;  people  in  the  neighborhood  used 
to  smile  at  his  facility  for  adoration,  and  thought 
it  of  a  piece  with  his  enthusiastic  character. 
They  were  quite  right  ;  in  his  strange  nature 
the  violence  and  the  coldness  were  equally  gen- 
uine, both  being  a  means  to  gratify  some  per- 
sonal ambition,  desire,  or  indolence.  It  is  not  an 
uncommon  Irish  type  ;  self-important,  upright, 
honorable,  yet  with  a  bent  towards  subtlety : 
abstemious  in  habit,  but  with  freaks  of  violent 
self-indulgence  ;  courteous  and  impulsive  to- 
wards strangers,  though  cold  to  members  of  the 
household  ;  naturally  violent,  and  often  assuming 
violence  as  an  instrument  of  authority  ;  selfish 
and  dutiful ;  passionate,  and  devoid  of  intense 
affection. 


1 6  EMILY  BRONTE. 

Miss  Branwell  was  precisely  the  little  person 
with  whom  it  was  natural  that  such  a  man,  a 
self-made  man,  should  fall  in  love.  She  was 
very  small,  quiet  and  gentle,  not  exactly  pretty, 
but  elegant  and  ladylike.  She  was,  indeed,  a 
well-educated  young  lady  of  good  connections  ; 
a  very  Phoenix  she  must  have  seemed  in  the 
eyes  of  a  lover  conscious  of  a  background  of 
Pruntyism  and  potatoes.  She  was  about  twenty- 
one  and  he  thirty-five  when  they  first  met  in  the 
early  summer  of  1812.  They  were  engaged  in 
August.  Miss  Branwell's  letters  reveal  a  quiet 
intensity  of  devotion,  a  faculty  of  judgment,  a 
willingness  to  forgive  passing  slights,  that  must 
have  satisfied  the  absolute  and  critical  temper 
of  her  lover.  Under  the  devotion  and  the  quiet- 
ness there  is,  however,  the  note  of  an  indepen- 
dent spirit,  and  the  following  extract,  with  its 
capability  of  self-reliance  and  desire  to  rely  upon 
another,  reminds  one  curiously  of  passages  in  her 
daughter  Charlotte's  writings  : 

"For  some  years  I  have  been  perfectly  my 
own  mistress,  subject  to  no  control  whatever; 
so  far  from  it  that  my  sisters,  who  are  many 
years  older  than  myself,  and  even  my  dear 
mother  used  to  consult  me  on  every  occasion  of 
importance,  and  scarcely  ever  doubted  the  pro- 
priety of  my  words  and  actions :  perhaps  you 
will  be  ready  to  accuse  me  of  vanity  in  mention- 


PARENTAGE. 


17 


ing  this,  but  you  must  consider  that  I  do  not 
boast  of  it.  I  have  many  times  felt  it  a  dis- 
advantage, and  although,  I  thank  God,  it  has 
never  led  me  into  error,  yet  in  circumstances 
of  uncertainty  and  doubt  I  have  deeply  felt  the 
want  of  a  guide  and  instructor." 

Years  afterwards,  when  Maria  Branwell's  let- 
ters were  given  into  the  hands  of  her  daughter 
Charlotte  and  that  daughter's  most  dear  and 
faithful  friend,  the  two  young  women  felt  a  keen 
pang  of  retrospective  sympathy  for  the  gentle, 
independent  little  person  who,  even  before  her 
marriage,  had  time  to  perceive  that  her  guide  and 
instructor  was.  not  the  infallible  Mentor  she  had 
thought  him  as"  the  first.  I  quote  the  words  of 
Charlotte's  friend,  of  more  authority  and  weight 
on  this  matter  than  those  of  any  other  person 
living,  taken  from  a  manuscript  which  she  has 
placed  at  my  disposal  : 

"  Miss  Branwell's  letters  showed  that  her  en- 
gagement, though  not  a  prolonged  one,  was  not 
as  happy  as  it  ought  to  have  been.  There  was  a 
pathos  of  apprehension  (though  gently  expressed) 
in  part  of  the  correspondence  lest  Mr.  Bronte 
should  cool  in  his  affection  towards  her,  and  the 
readers  perceived  with  some  indignation  that 
there  had  been  a  just  cause  for  this  apprehen- 
sion. Mr.  Bronte,  with  all  his  iron  strength 
and  power  of  will,  had  his  weakness,  and   one 


X8  EMILY  BRONTE. 

which,  wherever  it  exists,  spoils  and  debases  the 
character —  he  had  personal  vanity.  Miss  Bran- 
well's  finer  nature  rose  above  such  weakness  ; 
but  she  suffered  all  the  more  from  evidences  of 
it  in  one  to  whom  she  had  given  her  affections 
and  whom  she  was  longing  to  look  up  to  in  all 
things." 

On  the  29th  of  December,  18 12,  this  disillu- 
sioned, loving  little  lady  was  married  to  Patrick 
Bronte,  from  her  uncle's  parsonage  near  Leeds. 
The  young  couple  took  up  their  abode  at  Harts- 
head,  Mr.  Brontes  curacy.  Three  years  after- 
wards they  moved,  with  two  little  baby  girls, 
Maria  and  Elizabeth,  to  a  better  living  at  Thorn- 
ton. The  country  round  is  desolate  and  bleak  ; 
great  winds  go  sweeping  by  ;  young  Mrs.  Bronte, 
whose  husband  generally  sat  alone  in  his  study, 
would  have  missed  her  cheerful  home  in  sunny 
Penzance  (being  delicate  and  prone  to  supersti- 
tion), but  that  she  was  a  patient  and  uncomplain- 
ing woman,  and  she  had  scant  time  for  thought 
among  her  many  cares  for  the  thick-coming  lit- 
tle lives  that  peopled  her  Yorkshire  home.  In 
1 8 16  Charlotte  Bronte  was  born.  In  the  next 
year  Patrick  Branwell.  In  1818  Emily  Jane. 
In  1 8 19  Anne.  Then  the  health  of  their  deli- 
cate and  consumptive  mother  began  to  break. 
After  seven  years'  marriage  and  with  six  young 
children,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Bronte  moved   on  the 


PARENTAGE. 


19 


25th  of  February,   1820,  to  their  new  home  at 
Haworth  Vicarage. 

The  village  of  Haworth  stands,  steep  and  gray, 
on  the  topmost  side  of  an  abrupt  low  hill.  Such 
hills,  more  steep  than  high,  are  congregated 
round,  circle  beyond  circle,  to  the  utmost  limit  of 
the  horizon.  Not  a  wood,  not  a  river.  As  far  as 
eye  can  reach  these  treeless  hills,  their  sides  cut 
into  fields  by  gray  walls  of  stone,  with  here  and 
there  a  gray  stone  village,  and  here  and  there 
a  gray  stone  mill,  present  no  other  colors  than 
the  singular  north-country  brilliance  of  the 
green  grass,  and  the  blackish  gray  of  the  stone. 
Now  and  then  a  toppling,  gurgling  mill-beck 
gives  life  to  the  scene.  But  the  real  life,  the 
only  beauty  of  the  country,  is  set  on  the  top  of 
all  the  hills,  where  moor  joins  moor  from  York- 
shire into  Lancashire,  a  coiled  chain  of  wild,  free 
places.  White  with  snow  in  winter,  black  at  mid- 
summer, it  is  only  when  spring  dapples  the  dark 
heather-stems  with  the  vivid  green  of  the  sprout- 
ing whortleberry  bushes,  only  when  in  early 
autumn  the  moors  are  one  humming  mass  of 
fragrant  purple,  that  any  beauty  of  tint  lights  up 
the  scene.  But  there  is  always  a  charm  in  the 
moors  for  hardy  and  solitary  spirits.  Between 
them  and  heaven  nothing  dares  to  interpose. 
The  shadows  of  the  coursing  clouds  alter  the 
aspect  of  the  place  a  hundred  times  a  day.     A 


20  EMILY  BRONTE. 

hundred  little  springs  and  streams  well  in  its 
soil,  making  spots  of  livid  greenness  round  their 
rise.  A  hundred  birds  of  every  kind  are  flying 
and  singing  there.  Larks  sing ;  cuckoos  call ; 
all  the  tribes  of  linnets  and  finches  twitter  in 
the  bushes ;  plovers  moan  ;  wild  ducks  fly  past ; 
more  melancholy  than  all,  on  stormy  days,  the 
white  sea-mews  cry,  blown  so  far  inland  by  the 
force  of  the  gales  that  sweep  irresistibly  over 
the  treeless  and  houseless  moors.  There  in  the 
spring  you  may  take  in  your  hands  the  weak, 
halting  fledglings  of  the  birds ;  rabbits  and 
game  multiply  in  the  hollows.  There  in  the 
autumn  the  crowds  of  bees,  mad  in  the  heather, 
send  the  sound  of  their  humming  down  the  vil- 
lage street.  The  winds,  the  clouds,  Nature  and 
life,  must  be  the  friends  of  those  who  would  love 
the  moors. 

But  young  Mrs.  Bronte  never  could  go  on 
the  moors.  She  was  frail  and  weak,  poor  woman, 
when  she  came  to  live  in  the  oblong  gray  stone 
parsonage  on  the  windy  top  of  the  hill.  The 
village  ran  sheer  down  at  her  feet;  but  she 
could  not  walk  down  the  steep  rough-paven 
street,  nor  on  the  pathless  moors.  She  was  very 
ill  and  weak ;  her  husband  spent  nearly  all  his 
time  in  the  study,  writing  his  poems,  his  tracts, 
and  his  sermons.  She  had  no  companions  but 
the  children.     And  when,  in  a  very  few  months, 


PARENTAGE.  21 

she  found  that  she  was  sickening  of  a  cancer, 
she  could  not  bear  to  see  much  of  the  children 
that  she  must  leave  so  soon. 

Who  dare  say  if  that  marriage  was  happy  ? 
Mrs.  Gaskell,  writing  in  the  life  and  for  the  eyes 
of  Mr.  Bronte,  speaks  of  his  unwearied  care,  his 
devotion  in  the  night-nursing.  But  before  that 
fatal  illness  was  declared,  she  lets  fall  many  a 
hint  of  the  young  wife's  loneliness  during  her 
husband's  lengthy,  ineffectual  studies ;  of  her 
patient  suffering  of  his  violent  temper.  She 
does  not  say,  but  we  may  suppose,  with  what 
inward  pleasure  Mrs.  Bronte  witnessed  her 
favorite  silk  dress  cut  into  shreds  because  her 
husband's  pride  did  not  choose  that  she  should 
accept  a  gift ;  or  watched  the  children's  colored 
shoes  thrown  on  the  fire,  with  no  money  in  her 
purse  to  get  new  ones  ;  or  listened  to  her  hus- 
band's cavil  at  the  too  frequent  arrival  of  his 
children ;  or  heard  the  firing  of  his  pistol-shots 
at  the  out-house  doors,  the  necessary  vent  of  a 
passion  not  to  be  wreaked  in  words.  She  was 
patient,  brave,  lonely,  and  silent.  But  Mr. 
Wemyss  Reid,  who  has  had  unexampled  facili- 
ties for  studying  the  Bronte  papers,  does  not 
scruple  to  speak  of  Mr.  Bronte's  "persistent 
coldness  and  neglect"  of  his  wife,  his  "stern  and 
peremptory  "  dealings  with  her,  of  her  "  habitual 
dread  of  her  lordly  master ; "  and  the  manuscript 


22  EMILY  BRONTE. 

which  I  have  once  already  quoted  alludes  to  the 
"hard  and  inflexible  will  which  raised  itself 
sometimes  into  tyranny  and  cruelty."  It  is 
within  the  character  of  the  man  that  all  this 
should  be  true.  Safely  wed,  the  woman  to 
whom  he  had  made  hot  love  would  experience 
no  more  of  his  impulsive  tenderness.  He  had 
provided  for  her  and  done  his  duty ;  her  duty 
was  to  be  at  hand  when  he  needed  her.  Yet, 
imminent  death  once  declared,  all  his  upright- 
ness, his  sense  of  honor,  would  call  on  him 
to  be  careful  to  the  creature  he  had  vowed  to 
love  and  cherish,  all  his  selfishness  would  oblige 
him  to  try  and  preserve  the  mother  of  six  little 
children  under  seven  years  of  age.  "They  kept 
themselves  very  close,"  the  village  people  said  ; 
and  at  least  in  this  last  illness  the  husband  and 
wife  were  frequently  together.  Their  love  for 
each  other,  new  revived  and  soon  to  close, 
seemed  to  exclude  any  thought  of  the  children. 
We  hear  expressly  that  Mr.  Bronte,  from  natural 
disinclination,  and  Mrs.  Bronte,  from  fear  of 
agitation,  saw  very  little  of  the  small  earnest 
babies  who  talked  politics  together  in  the  "  chil- 
dren's study,"  or  toddled  hand  in  hand  over  the 
neighboring  moors, 

Meanwhile  the  young  mother  grew  weaker 
day  by  day,  suffering  great  pain  and  often  un- 
able to  move.     But   repining  never  passed  her 


PARENTAGE. 


23 


lips.  Perhaps  she  did  not  repine.  Perhaps  she 
did  not  grieve  to  quit  her  harassed  life,  the 
children  she  so  seldom  saw,  her  constant  pain, 
the  husband  "not  dramatic  enough  in  his  per- 
ceptions to  see  how  miserable  others  might  be 
in  a  life  that  to  him  was  all-sufficient." x  For 
some  months  she  lay  still,  asking  sometimes 
to  be  lifted  in  bed  that  she  might  watch  the 
nurse  cleaning  the  grate,  because  she  did  it  as 
they  did  in  Cornwall.  For  some  months  she 
suffered  more  and  more.  In  September,  1821, 
she  died. 

1  Mrs.  Gaskell. 


CHAPTER   II. 


BABYHOOD. 


After  his  wife's  death  the  Rev.  Mr.  Bronte's 
life  grew  yet  more  secluded  from  ordinary 
human  interests.  He  was  not  intimate  with  his 
parishioners ;  scarcely  more  intimate  with  his 
children.  He  was  proud  of  them  when  they 
said  anything  clever,  for,  in  spite  of  their  baby- 
hood, he  felt  at  such  moments  that  they  were 
worthy  of  their  father  ;  but  their  forlorn  infancy, 
their  helpless  ignorance,  was  no  appeal  to  his 
heart.  Some  months  before  his  wife's  death  he 
had  begun  to  take  his  dinner  alone,  on  account 
of  his  delicate  digestion  ;  and  he  continued  the 
habit,  seeing  the  children  seldom  except  at 
breakfast  and  tea,  when  he  would  amuse  the 
elders  by  talking  Tory  politics  with  them,  and 
entertain  the  baby,  Emily,  with  his  Irish  tales 
of  violence  and  horror.  Perhaps  on  account  of 
this  very  aloofness,  he  always  had  a  great  influ- 
ence over  the  children  ;  he  did  not  care  for  any 
dearer  relation. 

His  empty  days  were  filled  with  occasional 


BABYHOOD. 


25 


visits  to  some  sick  person  in  the  village ;  with 
long  walks  alone  over  the  moors,  and  with  the 
composition  of  his  '  Cottage  in  the  Wood '  and 
those  grandiloquent  sermons  which  still  linger 
in  the  memory  of  Haworth.  Occasionally  a 
clergyman  from  one  of  the  neighboring  villages 
would  walk  over  to  see  him ;  but  as  Mrs.  Bronte 
had  died  so  soon  after  her  arrival  at  Haworth 
their  wives  never  came,  and  the  Bronte  children 
had  no  playfellows  in  the  vicarages  near ;  nor 
were  they  allowed  to  associate  with  the  village 
children. 

This  dull  routine  life  suited  Mr.  Bronte.  He 
had  labored  for  many  years  and  now  he  took 
his  repose.  We  get  no  further  sign  of  the  im- 
patient energies  of  his  youth.  He  had  changed, 
developed  ;  even  as  those  sea-creatures  develop, 
who,  having  in  their  youth  fins,  eyes,  and  sensi- 
tive feelers,  become,  when  once  they  find  their 
resting-place,  motionlessly  attached  to  it,  losing, 
one  after  the  other,  sight,  movement,  and  even 
sensation,  everything  but  the  faculty  to  adhere. 

Meanwhile  the  children  were  left  alone.  For 
sympathy  and  amusement  they  only  had  each 
other  to  look  to ;  and  never  were  brother  and 
sisters  more  devoted.  Maria,  the  eldest,  took 
care  of  them  all  —  she  was  an  old-fashioned, 
motherly  little  girl ;  frail  and  small  in  appear- 
ance, with  thoughtful,  tender  ways.     She  was 


26  EMILY  BRONTE. 

very  careful  of  her  five  little  ones,  this  seven- 
year-old  mother  of  theirs,  and  never  seems  to 
have  exerted  the  somewhat  tyrannic  authority 
usually  wielded  by  such  youthful  guardians. 
Indeed,  for  all  her  seniority,  she  was  the  untidy 
one  of  the  family  herself ;  it  was  against  her 
own  faults  only  that  she  was  severe.  She  must 
have  been  a  very  attaching  little  creature,  with 
her  childish  delinquencies  and  her  womanly 
cares  ;  protecting  her  little  family  with  gentle 
love,  and  discussing  the  debates  in  Parliament 
with  her  father.  Charlotte  remembered  her  to 
the  end  of  her  life  with  passionate,  clinging 
affection,  and  has  left  us  her  portrait  in  the' 
pathetic  figure  of  Helen  Burns. 

This  delicate,  weak-chested  child  of  seven  was 
the  head  of  the  nursery.  Then  came  Elizabeth, 
less  clearly  individualized  in  her  sisters'  mem- 
ory. She  also  bore  in  her  tiny  body  the  seeds 
of  fatal  consumption.  Next  came  impetuous 
Charlotte,  always  small  and  pale.  Then  red- 
headed, talkative  Patrick  Branwell.  Lastly 
Emily  and  Anne,  mere  babies,  toddling  with 
difficulty  over  the  paven  path  to  the  moors. 

Such  a  family  demanded  the  closest  care,  the 
most  exact  attention.  This  was  perhaps  impos- 
sible on  an  income  of  ^200  a  year,  when  the 
mother  lay  up-stairs  dying  of  a  disease  that  re- 
quired constant  nursing.     Still  the  conditions  of 


BABYHOOD. 


27 


the  Brontes'  youth  were  unnecessarily  unhealthy. 
It  could  not  be  helped  that  these  delicate  chil- 
dren should  live  on  the  bleak  wind-swept  hill 
where  consumption  is  even  now  a  scourge ;  it 
could  not  be  helped  that  their  home  was  bounded 
on. two  sides  by  the  village  graveyard  ;  it  could 
not  be  helped  that  they  were  left  without  a 
mother  in  their  babyhood  ;  but  never,  short  of 
neglect,  were  delicate  children  less  considered. 

The  little  ones,  familiar  with  serious  illness 
in  the  house,  expected  small  indulgence.  They 
were  accustomed  to  think  nothing  so  necessary 
as  that  they  should  amuse  themselves  in  quiet, 
and  keep  out  of  the  way.  The  lesson  learned 
so  young  remained  in  the  minds  of  the  five  sis- 
ters all  their  lives.  From  their  infancy  they 
were  retired  and  good  ;  it  was  only  Patrick 
Branwell  who  sometimes  showed  his  masculine 
independence  by  a  burst  of  natural  naughtiness. 
They  were  the  quietest  of  children  by  nature 
and  necessity.  The  rooms  at  Haworth  Parsonage 
were  small  and  few.  There  were  in  front  two 
moderate-sized  parlors  looking  on  the  garden, 
that  on  the  right  being  Mr.  Bronte's  study,  and 
the  larger  one  opposite  the  family  sitting-room. 
Behind  these  was  a  sort  of  empty  store-room 
and  the  kitchens.  On  the  first  floor  there  was 
a  servants'  room,  where  the  two  servants  slept, 
over  the  back  premises  ;    and  a  bedroom  over 


28  EMILY  BRONTE. 

each  of  the  parlors.  Between  these  and  over 
the  entrance  passage  was  a  tiny  slip  of  a  room, 
scarcely  larger  than  a  linen-closet,  scarcely  wider 
than  the  doorway  and  the  window-frame  that 
faced  each  other  at  either  end.  During  the  last 
months  of  Mrs.  Bronte's  illness,  when  it  became 
necessary  that  she  should  have  a  bedroom  to 
herself,  all  the  five  little  girls  were  put  to  sleep 
in  this  small  and  draughty  closet,  formerly  the 
children's  study.  There  can  scarcely  have  been 
room  to  creep  between  their  beds.  Very  quiet 
they  must  have  been  ;  for  any  childish  play 
would  have  disturbed  the  dying  mother  on  the 
one  side,  and  the  anxious,  irritable  father  on  the 
other.  And  all  over  the  house  they  must  keep 
the  same  hushed  calm,  since  the  low  stone- 
floored  rooms  would  echo  any  noise.  Very 
probably  they  were  not  unhappy  children  for  all 
their  quietness.  They  enjoyed  the  most  abso- 
lute freedom,  dearest  possession  of  childhood. 
When  they  were  tired  of  reading  the  papers 
(they  seemed  to  have  had  no  children's  books), 
or  of  discussing  the  rival  merits  of  Bonaparte 
and  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  they  were  free  to 
go  along  the  paven  way  over  the  three  fields  at 
the  back,  till  the  last  steyle-hole  in  the  last 
stone  wall  let  them  through  on  to  the  wide  and 
solitary  moors.  There  in  all  weathers  they 
might  be  found  ;  there  they  passed  their  happi- 
est hours,  uncontrolled  as  the  birds  overhead. 


BABYHOOD. 


29 


One  rule  seems  to  have  been  made  by  their 
father  for  the  management  of  these  precocious 
children  with  their  consumptive  taint,  with  their 
mother  dying  of  cancer  —  that  one  rule  of  Mr. 
Bronte's  making,  still  preserved  to  us,  is  that 
the  children  should  eat  no  meat.  The  Rev. 
Patrick  Bronte,  B.A.,  had  grown  to  heroic  pro- 
portions on  potatoes  ;  he  knew  no  reason  why 
his  children  should  fare  differently. 

The  children  never  grumbled ;  so  Mrs.  Bronte's 
sick-nurse  told  Mrs.  Gaskell : 

"  You  would  not  have  known  there  was  a 
child  in  the  house,  they  were  such  still,  noise- 
less, good  little  creatures.  Maria  would  shut 
herself  up  in  the  children's  study  with  a  news- 
paper and  be  able  to  tell  one  everything  when 
she  came  out ;  debates  in  Parliament,  and  I 
don't  know  what  all.  She  was  as  good  as  a 
mother  to  her  sisters  and  brother.  But  there 
never  were  such  good  children.  I  used  to  think 
them  spiritless,  they  were  so  different  to  any 
children  I  had  ever  seen.  In  part,  I  set  it  down 
to  a  fancy  Mr.  Bronte  had  of  not  letting  them 
have  flesh-meat  to  eat.  It  was  from  no  wish 
for  sa'ving,  for  there  was  plenty  and  even  waste 
in  the  house,  with  young  servants  and  no  mis- 
tress to  see  after  them  ;  but  he  thought  that 
children  should  be  brought  up  simply  and  hard- 
ily :  so  they  had  nothing  but  potatoes  for  their 


30 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


dinner  ;  but  they  never  seemed  to  wish  for  any- 
thing else.  They  were  good  little  creatures. 
Emily  was  the  prettiest." 

This  pretty  Emily  of  two  years  old  was  no 
mother's  constant  joy.  That  early  shaping  ten- 
derness, those  recurring  associations  of  reverent 
love,  must  be  always  missing  in  her  memories. 
Remembering  her  earliest  childhood,  she  would 
recall  a  constant  necessity  of  keeping  joys  and 
sorrows  quiet,  not  letting  others  hear;  she  would 
recall  the  equal  love  of  children  for  each  other, 
the  love  of  the  only  five  children  she  knew  in 
all  the  world  ;  the  free  wide  moors  where  she 
might  go  as  she  pleased,  and  where  the  rabbits 
played  and  the  moor-game  ran  and  the  wild 
birds  sang  and  flew. 

Mrs.  Bronte's  death  can  have  made  no  great 
difference  to  any  of  her  children  save  Maria, 
who  had  been  her  constant  companion  at  Thorn- 
ton ;  friendly  and  helpful  as  a  little  maiden  of 
six  can  be  to  the  worried,  delicate  mother  of 
many  babies.  Emily  and  Anne  would  barely 
remember  her  at  all.  Charlotte  could  only  just 
recall  the  image  of  her  mother  playing  with 
Patrick  Branwell  one  twilight  afternoon.  An 
empty  room,  a  cessation  of  accustomed  business, 
their  mother's  death  can  have  meant  little  more 
than  that  to  the  younger  children. 

For  about  a  year  they  were  left  entirely  to 


BABYHOOD. 


31 


their  own  devices,  and  to  the  rough  care  of 
kind-hearted,  busy  servants.  They  devised  plays 
about  great  men,  read  the  newspapers,  and  wor- 
shipped the  Duke  of  Wellington,  strolled  over 
the  moors  at  their  own  sweet  will,  knowing  and 
caring  absolutely  for  no  creature  outside  the 
walls  of  their  own  home.  To  these  free,  hardy, 
independent  little  creatures  Mr.  Bronte  an- 
nounced one  morning  that  their  maiden  aunt 
from  Cornwall,  their  mother's  eldest  sister,  was 
coming  to  superintend  their  education. 

"  Miss  Branwell  was  a  very  small,  antiquated 
little  lady.  She  wore  caps  large  enough  for 
half-a-dozen  of  the  present  fashion,  and  a  front 
of  light  auburn  curls  over  her  forehead.  She 
always  dressed  in  silk.  She  had  a  horror  of  the 
climate  so  far  north,  and  of  the  stone  floors  in 
the  Parsonage.  .  .  .  She  talked  a  great  deal  of 
her  younger  days  —  the  gayeties  of  her  dear 
native  town  Penzance,  the  soft,  warm  climate, 
&c.  She  gave  one  the  idea  that  she  had  been 
a  belle  among  her  own  home  acquaintance. 
She  took  snuff  out  of  a  very  pretty  gold  snuff- 
box, which  she  sometimes  presented  to  you  with 
a  little  laugh,  as  if  she  enjoyed  the  slight  shock 
of  astonishment  visible  in  your  countenance. 
.  .  .  She  would  be  very  lively  and  intelligent, 
and  tilt  arguments  against  Mr.  Bronte  without 
fear." 


32 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


So  Miss  Ellen  Nussey  recalls  the  elderly, 
prim  Miss  Branwell  about  ten  years  later  than 
her  first  arrival  in  Yorkshire.  But  it  is  always 
said  of  her  that  she  changed  very  little.  Miss 
Nussey's  striking  picture  will  pretty  accurately 
represent  the  maiden  lady  of  forty,  who,  from 
a  stringent  and  noble  sense  of  duty,  left  her 
southern,  pleasant  home  to  take  care  of  the 
little  orphans  running  wild  at  Haworth  Parson- 
age. It  is  easy  to  imagine  with  what  horrified 
astonishment  aunt  and  nieces  must  have  re- 
garded each  other's  peculiarities. 

It  was,  no  doubt,  an  estimable  advantage  for 
the  children  to  have  some  related  lady  in  au- 
thority over  them.  Henceforth  their  time  was 
no  longer  free  for  their  own  disposal.  They  said 
lessons  to  their  father,  they  did  sewing  with 
their  aunt,  and  learned  from  her  all  housewifely 
duties.  The  advantage  would  have  been  a 
blessing  had  their  aunt  been  a  woman  of  sweet- 
natured,  motherly  turn  ;  but  the  change  from 
perfect  freedom  to  her  old-maidish  discipline  was 
not  easy  to  bear  —  a  bitter  good,  a  strengthen- 
ing but  disagreeable  tonic,  making  the  children 
yet  less  expansive,  yet  more  self-contained  and 
silent.  Patrick  Branwell  was  the  favorite  with 
his  aunt,  the  naughty,  clever,  brilliant,  rebel- 
lious, affectionate  Patrick.  Next  to  him  she 
always  preferred  the  pretty,  gentle  baby  Anne, 


BABYHOOD. 


33 


with  her  sweet,  clinging  ways,  her  ready  sub- 
mission, her  large  blue  eyes,  and  clear  pink-and- 
white  complexion.  Charlotte,  impulsive,  obsti- 
nate, and  plain,  the  rugged,  dogged  Emily,  were 
not  framed  to  be  favorites  with  her.  Many  a 
fierce  tussle  of  wills,  many  a  grim  listening  to 
over-frivolous  reminiscence,  must  have  shown 
the  aunt  and  her  nieces  the  difference  of  their 
natures.  Maria/  too,  the  whilom  head  of  the 
nursery,  must  have  found  submission  hard  ;  but 
hers  was  a  singularly  sweet  and  modest  nature. 
Of  Elizabeth  but  little  is  remembered. 

Mr.  Bronte,  now  that  the  children  were  grow- 
ing out  of  babyhood,  seems  to  have  taken  a 
certain  pride  in  them.  Probably  their  daily  les- 
sons showed  him  the  character  and  talent  hidden 
under  those  pale  and  grave  little  countenances. 
In  a  letter  to  Mrs.  Gaskell  he  recounts  instances 
of  their  early  talent.  More  home-loving  fathers 
will  smile  at  the  simple  yet  theatric  means  he 
took  to  discover  the  secret  of  his  children's  real 
dispositions.  'Twas  a  characteristic  inspiration, 
worthy  the  originator  of  the  ancient  name  of 
Bronte.  A  certain  simplicity  of  confidence  in 
his  own  subtlety  gives  a  piquant  flavor  to  the 
manner  of  telling  the  tale  : 

"A  circumstance  now  occurs  to  my  mind 
which  I  may  as  well  mention.  When  my  chil- 
dren were  very  young,  when,  as  far  as  I  can 
3 


34 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


remember,  the  eldest  was  about  ten  years  of  age 
and  the  youngest  four,  thinking  that  they  knew 
more  than  I  had  yet  discovered,  in  order  to 
make  them  speak  with  less  timidity,  I  deemed 
that  if  they  were  put  under  a  sort  of  cover  I 
might  gain  my  end  ;  and  happening  to  have  a 
mask  in  the  house  I  told  them  all  to  stand  and 
speak  boldly  from  under  cover  of  the  mask. 

"  I  began  with  the  youngest  (Anne,  afterwards 
Acton  Bell),  and  asked  what  a  child  like  her 
most  wanted ;  she  answered,  '  Age  and  expe- 
rience.' I  asked  the  next  (Emily,  afterwards 
Ellis  Bell)  what  I  had  best  do  with  her  brother 
Bran  well,  who  sometimes  was  a  naughty  boy  ; 
she  answered,  '  Reason  with  him  ;  and  when  he 
won't  listen  to  reason  whip  him.'  I  asked  Bran- 
well  what  was  the  best  way  of  knowing  the 
difference  between  the  intellects  of  men  and 
women;  he  answered,  'By  considering  the  dif- 
ference between  them  as  to  their  bodies.'  I 
then  asked  Charlotte  what  was  the  best  book  in 
the  world ;  she  answered,  '  The  Bible.'  And 
what  was  the  next  best ;  she  answered,  '  The 
book  of  Nature.'  I  then  asked  the  next  (Eliza- 
beth, who  seems  to  have  taken  Miss  Branwcll's 
teaching  to  heart)  what  was  the  best  mode  of 
education  for  a  woman  ;  she  answered,  '  That 
which  would  make  her  rule  her  house  well.' 
Lastly,  I  asked  the  oldest  what  was  the  best 


BABYHOOD. 


35 


mode  of  spending  time  ;  she  answered,  '  By  lay- 
ing it  out  in  preparation  for  a  happy  eternity.' 
I. may  not  have  given  precisely  their  words,  but 
I  have  nearly  done  so,  as  they  have  made  a  deep 
and  lasting  impression  on  my  memory.  The 
substance,  however,  was  exactly  what  I  have 
stated." 

The  severely  practical  character  of  Emily's 
answer  is  a  relief  from  the  unchildish  philosophy 
of  Branwell,  Maria,  and  the  baby.  A  child  of 
four  years  old  who  prefers  age  and  experience 
to  a  tartlet  and  some  sweets  must  be  an  un- 
natural product.  But  the  Brontes  seem  to  have 
had  no  childhood  ;  unlimited  discussion  of  de- 
bates, long  walks  without  any  playfellows,  the 
free  perusal  of  Methodist  magazines,  this  is  the 
pabulum  of  their  infancy.  Years  after,  when 
they  asked  some  school-children  to  tea,  the 
clergyman's  young  daughters  had  to  ask  their 
little  scholars  to  teach  them  how  to  play.  It 
was  the  first  time  they  had  ever  cared  to  try. 

What  their  childhood  had  really  taught  them 
was  the  value  of  their  father's  quaint  experi- 
ment. They  learned  to  speak  boldly  from  under 
a  mask.  Restrained,  enforcedly  quiet,  assuming 
a  demure  appearance  to  cloak  their  passionate 
little  hearts,  the  five  sisters  never  spoke  their 
inmost  mind  in  look,  word,  or  gesture.  They 
saved  the  leisure  in  which  they  could  not  play 


36  EMILY  BRONTE. 

to  make  up  histories,  dramas,  and  fairy  tales,  in 
which  each  let  loose,  without  noise,  without  fear 
of  check,  the  fancies  they  never  tried  to  put  into 
action  as  other  children  are  wont  to.  Charlotte 
wrote  tales  of  heroism  and  adventure.  Emily 
cared  more  for  fairy  tales,  wild,  unnatural, 
strange  fancies,  suggested  no  doubt  in  some 
degree  by  her  father's  weird  Irish  stories.  Al- 
ready in  her  nursery  the  peculiar  bent  of  her 
genius  took  shape. 

Meanwhile  the  regular  outer  life  went  on  — 
the  early  rising,  the  dusting  and  pudding-making, 
the  lessons  said  to  their  father,  the  daily  portion 
of  sewing  accomplished  in  Miss  Branwell's  bed- 
room, because  that  lady  grew  more  and  more  to 
dislike  the  flagged  flooring  of  the  sitting-room. 
Every  day,  some  hour  snatched  for  a  ramble  on 
the  moors  ;  peaceful  times  in  summer  when  the 
little  girls  took  their  sewing  under  the  stunted 
thorns  and  currants  in  the  garden,  the  clicking 
sound  of  Miss  Branwell's  pattens  indistinctly 
heard  within.  Happy  times  when  six  children, 
all  in  all  to  each  other,  told  wonderful  stories  in 
low  voices  for  their  own  entrancement.  Then, 
one  spring,  illness  in  the  house;  the  children 
suffering  a  complication  of  measles  and  whoop- 
ing-cough. They  never  had  such  happy  times 
again,  for  it  was  thought  better  that  the  two 
elders  should  go  away  after  their  sickness ;  should 


BABYHOOD. 


37 


get  their  change  of  air  at  some  good  school.  Mr. 
Bronte  made  inquiries  and  heard  of  an  insti- 
tution established  for  clergymen's  daughters  at 
Cowan's  Bridge,  a  village  on  the  high  road  be- 
tween Leeds  and  Kendal.  After  some  demur- 
ring the  school  authorities  consented  to  receive 
the  children,  now  free  from  infection,  though 
still  delicate  and  needing  care.  Thither  Mr. 
Bronte  took  Maria  and  Elizabeth  in  the  July  of 
1824.  Emily  and  Charlotte  followed  in  Sep- 
tember. 


CHAPTER   III. 


COWANS     BRIDGE. 


"It  was  in  the  year  1823  that  the  school  for 
clergymen's  daughters  was  first  projected.  The 
place  was  only  then  contemplated  as  desirable  in 
itself,  and  as  a  place  which  might  probably  be 
feasible  at  some  distant  day.  The  mention  of  it, 
however,  to  only  two  friends  in  the  South  having 
met  with  their  warm  approbation  and  a  remit- 
tance of  j£jo,  an  opening  seemed  to  be  made  for 
the  commencement  of  the  work. 

"  With  this  sum  in  hand,  in  a  reliance  upon 
Him  who  has  all  hearts  at  his  disposal,  and  to 
whom  belong  the  silver  and  the  gold,  the  prem- 
ises at  Cowan's  Bridge  were  purchased,  the  nec- 
essary repairs  and  additions  proceeded  with,  and 
the  school  was  furnished  and  opened  in  the 
spring  of  1824.  The  whole  expense  of  the  pur- 
chase and  outfit  amounted  to  .£2,333  l7s-  9^- 

"  The  scanty  provision  of  a  large  portion  of 
the  clergy  of  the  Established  Church  has  long 
been  a  source  of  regret ;  and  very  efficient  means 
have  been  adopted  in  various  ways  to  remedy  it. 


COWAN'S  BRIDGE. 


39 


The  sole^bject  of  the  Clergy  Daughters'  School 
is  to  add,  in  its  measure,  to  these  means,  by- 
placing  a  good  female  education  within  reach  of 
the  poorest  clergy.  And  by  them  the  seasonable 
aid  thus  afforded  has  been  duly  appreciated.  The 
anxiety  and  toil  which  necessarily  attend  the 
management  of  such  an  institution  have  been 
abundantly  repaid  by  the  gratitude  which  has 
been  manifested  among  the  parents  of  the  pupils. 

"  It  has  been  a  very  gratifying  circumstance 
that  the  Clergy  Daughters'  School  has  been  en- 
abled to  follow  up  the  design  of  somewhat  kin- 
dred institutions  in  London.  Pupils  have  come 
to  it  as  apprentices  from  the  Corporation  of  the 
Sons  of  the  Clergy;  and  likewise  from  the  Clergy 
Orphan  School,  in  which  the  education  is  of  a 
limited  nature,  and  the  pupils  are  not  allowed  to 
remain  after  the  age  of  sixteen. 

"  The  school  is  situated  in  the  parish  of  Tun- 
stall,  on  the  turnpike  road  from  Leeds  to  Kendal, 
between  which  towns  a  coach  runs  daily,  and 
about  two  miles  from  the  town  of  Kirkby  Lons- 
dale. 

"Each  pupil  pays  ,£14  a  year  (half  in  advance) 
for  clothing,  lodging,  boarding,  and  educating ; 
,£1  entrance  towards  the  expense  of  books,  and 
£5  entrance  for  pelisses,  frocks,  bonnets,  &c, 
which  they  wear  all  alike.1     So  that  the  first  pay- 

1  It  is  very  much  wished  that  the  pupils  should  wear  only 
their  school  dress  during  the.  vacations. 


40 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


ment  which  a  pupil  is  required  to  brinfpCvith  her 
is  ^ir  ;  and  the  subsequent  half-yearly  payment 
£7.  If  French,  music,  or  drawing  is  learnt,  ,£3  a 
year  additional  is  paid  for  each  of  these. 

"  The  education  is  directed  according  to  the 
capacities  of  the  pupils  and  the  wishes  of  their 
friends.  In  all  cases  the  great  object  in  view 
is  their  intellectual  and  religious  improvement ; 
and  to  give  that  plain  and  useful  education  which 
may  best  fit  them  to  return  with  respectability 
and  advantage  to  their  own  homes  ;  or  to  main- 
tain themselves  in  the  different  stations  of  life 
to  which  Providence  may  call  them." 

.  .  .  Here  comes  some  explanation  of  the 
treasurer's  accounts.  Then  the  report  recom- 
mences : 

"  Low  as  the  terms  are,  it  has  been  distressing 
to  discover  that  in  many  cases  clergymen  who 
have  applied  on  behalf  of  their  daughters  have 
been  unable  to  avail  themselves  of  the  benefits 
of  the  school  from  the  inadequacy  of  their  means 
to  raise  the  required  payments. 

"The  projectors'  object  will  not  be  fully  real- 
ized until  the  means  are  afforded  of  reducing  the 
terms  still  lower,  in  extreme  cases,  at  the  discre- 
tion of  the  committee.  And  he  trusts  that  the 
time  will  arrive  when,  either  by  legacies  or  other- 
wise, the  school  may  be  placed  within  the  reach 
of  those  of  the  clergy  for  whom  it  is  specially  in- 
tended —  namely,  the  most  destitute. 


CO  IVAN'S  BRIDGE. 


41 


"  The  school  is  open  to  the  whole  kingdom. 
Donors  and  subscribers  gain  the  first  attention 
in  the  recommendation  of  pupils  ;  and  the  only- 
inquiry  made  upon  applications  for  admission  is 
into  the  really  necessitous  circumstances  of  the 
applicant. 

"  There  are  now  ninety  pupils  in  the  school 
(the  number  that  can  be  accommodated)  and 
several  are  waiting  for  admission. 

"  The  school  is  under  the  care  of  Mrs.  Harben, 
as  superintendent,  eight  teachers,  and  two  under- 
teachers. 

"  To  God  belongs  the  glory  of  the  degree  of 
success  which  has  attended  this  undertaking,  and 
which  has  far  exceeded  the  most  sanguine  ex- 
pectations. But  the  expression  of  very  grateful 
acknowledgment  must  not  be  wanting  towards 
the  many  benefactors  who  have  so  readily  and 
so  bountifully  rendered  their  assistance.  They 
have  their  recompense  in  the  constant  prayers 
which  are  offered  up  from  many  a  thankful  heart 
for  all  who  support  this  institution." 

Thus  excellently  and  moderately  runs  the 
fourth  year's  report  of  the  philanthropic  Gym- 
nase  Moronval,  evangelical  Dotheboys  Hall,  fa- 
miliar to  readers  of  'Jane  Eyre.'  When  these 
congratulations  were  set  in  type,  those  horrors 
of  starvation,  cruelty,  and  fever  were  all  accom- 
plished which  brought  death  to  many  children, 


42  EMILY  BROiVTE. 

and  to  those  that  lived  an  embittering  remem- 
brance of  wrong.  The  two  Bronte  girls  who 
survived  their  school  days  brought  from  them  a 
deep  distrust  of  human  kindness,  a  difficult  belief 
in  sincere  affection,  not  natural  to  their  warm 
and  passionate  spirits.  They  brought  away  yet 
more  enfeebled  bodies,  prone  to  disease ;  they 
brought  away  the  memory  of  two  dear  sisters 
dead.  "  To  God  be  the  glory,"  says  the  report. 
Rather,  let  us  pray,  to  the  Rev.  William  Carus 
Wilson. 

The  report  quoted  above  was  issued  six  years 
after  the  autumn  in  which  the  little  Brontes  were 
sent  to  Cowan's  Bridge  ;  it  was  not  known  then 
in  what  terms  one  of  those  pale  little  girls  would 
thank  her  benefactors,  would  speak  of  her  ad- 
vantages. She  spoke  at  last,  and  generations 
of  readers  have  held  as  filthy  rags  the  righteous- 
ness of  that  institution,  thousands  of  charitable 
hearts  have  beat  high  with  indignation  at  the 
philanthropic  vanity  which  would  save  its  own 
soul  by  the  sufferings  of  little  children's  tender 
bodies.  Yet  by  an  odd  anomaly  this  ogre  bene- 
factor, this  Brocklehurst,  must  have  been  a  zeal- 
ous and  self-sacrificing  enthusiast,  with  all  his 
goodness  spoiled  by  an  imperious  love  of  author- 
ity, an  extravagant  conceit. 

It  was  in  the  first  year  of  the  school  that  the 
little  Bronte  girls  left  their  home  on  the  moors 


CO  IVAN'S  BRIDGE. 


43 


for  Cowan's  Bridge.  It  was  natural  that  as  yet 
many  things  should  go  wrong  and  grate  in  the 
unperfected  order  of  the  house  ;  equally  natural 
that  the  children  should  fail  to  make  excuses : 
poor  little  prisoners  pent,  shivering  and  starved, 
in  an  unkind  asylum  from  friends  and  liberty. 

The  school,  long  and  low,  more  like  an  unpre- 
tending farmhouse  than  an  institution,  forms  two 
sides  of  an  oblong.  The  back  windows  look  out 
on  a  flat  garden  about  seventy  yards  across. 
Part  of  the  house  was  originally  a  cottage  ;  the 
longer  part  a  disused  bobbin-mill,  once  turned  by 
the  stream  which  runs  at  the  side  of  the  damp, 
small  garden.  The  ground  floor  was  turned  into 
school-rooms,  the  dormitories  were  above,  the 
dining-room  and  the  teachers'  room  were  in  the 
cottage  at  the  end.  All  the  rooms  were  paved 
with  stone,  low-ceiled,  small- windowed  ;  not  such 
as  are  built  for  growing  children,  working  in 
large  classes  together.  No  board  of  managers 
would  permit  the  poorest  children  of  our  Lon- 
don streets  to  work  in  such  ill-ventilated  school- 
rooms. 

The  bobbin-mill,  not  built  for  habitation,  was, 
no  doubt,  faulty  and  insufficient  in  drainage. 
The  situation  of  the  house,  chosen  for  its  near- 
ness to  the  stream,  was  damp  and  cold,  on  a 
bleak,  unsheltered  plain,  picturesque  enough  in 
summer  with  the  green  alders  overhanging  the 


44 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


babbling  beck,  but  in  winter  bitter  chill.  In  this 
dreary  house  of  machines,  the  place  of  the  ousted 
wheels  and  springs  was  taken  by  ninety  hungry, 
growing  little  human  beings,  all  dressed  alike 
in  the  coarse,  ill-fitting  garments  of  charity,  all 
taught  to  look,  speak,  and  think  alike,  all  com- 
mended or  held  up  to  reprobation  according  as 
they  resembled  or  diverged  from  the  machines 
whose  room  they  occupied  and  whose  regular, 
thoughtless  movement  was  the  model  of  their 
life. 

These  children  chiefly  owed  their  excellent  ed- 
ucation, their  miserable  food  and  lodging,  to  the 
exertions  of  a  rich  clergyman  from  Willingdon, 
the  nearest  village.  The  Rev.  Carus  Wilson 
was  a  person  of  importance  in  the  neighbor- 
hood ;  a  person  who  was  looked  to  in  emer- 
gencies, who  prided  himself  on  his  prudence, 
foresight,  and  efficiency  in  helping  others.  With 
this,  none  the  less  a  man  of  real  and  zealous  de- 
sire to  do  good,  an  energetic,  sentient  person 
capable  of  seeing  evils  and  devising  remedies. 
He  wished  to  help  :  he  wished  no  less  that  it 
should  be  known  he  had  helped.  Pitying  the 
miserable  conditions  of  many  of  his  fellow-work- 
ers, he  did  not  rest  till  he  had  founded  a  school 
where  the  daughters  of  the  poor  clergy  should 
receive  a  fair  education  at  a  nominal  price. 
When  the  money  for  the  school  was  forthcoming, 


COWAN'S  BRIDGE. 


45 


the  property  was  vested  in  twelve  trustees  ;  Mr. 
Wilson  was  one.  He  was  also  treasurer  and 
secretary.  Nearly  all  the  work,  the  power,  the 
supervision,  the  authority  of  the  affair,  he  took 
upon  his  shoulders.  He  was  not  afraid  of  work, 
and  he  loved  power.  He  would  manage,  he 
would  be  overseer,  he  would  guide,  arrange,  and 
counsel.  So  sure  did  he  feel  of  his  capacity  to 
move  all  springs  himself,  that  he  seems  to  have 
exercised  little  pains  and  less  discretion  in  ap- 
pointing his  subordinates.  Good  fortune  sent 
him  a  gentle,  wise,  and  noble  woman  as  super- 
intendent ;  but  the  other  teachers  were  less  ca- 
pable, some  snappish,  some  without  authority. 
The  housekeeper,  who  should  have  been  chosen 
with  the  greatest  care,  since  in  her  hands  lay  the 
whole  management  and  preparation  of  the  food 
of  these  growing  children,  was  a  slovenly,  waste- 
ful woman,  taken  from  Mr.  Wilson's  kitchen, 
and  much  believed  in  by  himself.  Nevertheless 
to  her  door  must  we  lay  much  of  the  misery  of 
"  Lowood." 

The  funds  were  small  and  somewhat  uncer- 
tain. Honor  and  necessity  alike  compelled  a 
certain  economy.  Mr.  Wilson  contracted  for 
the  meat,  flour,  and  milk,  and  frequently  him- 
self inspected  the  supplies.  But  perhaps  he  did 
not  inspect  the  kitchen.  The  "  Lowood  "  schol- 
ars had  many  tales  to  tell  of  milk  turned  sour 


46  EMILY  BRONTE. 

in  dirty  pans  ;  of  burnt  porridge  with  disgusting 
fragments  in  it  from  uncleanly  cooking  vessels ; 
of  rice  boiled  in  water  from  the  rain-cask,  fla- 
vored with  dead  leaves,  and  the  dust  of  the 
roof  ;  of  beef  salted  when  already  tainted  by  de- 
composition ;  of  horrible  resurrection-pies  made 
of  unappetizing  scraps  and  rancid  fat.  The  meat, 
flour,  milk,  and  rice  were  doubtless  good  enough 
when  Mr.  Wilson  saw  them,  but  the  starved  lit- 
tle school-girls  with  their  disappointed  hunger 
had  neither  the  courage  to  complain  nor  the 
impartiality  to  excuse.  For  the  rest,  it  was 
not  easy  to  complain  to  Mr.  Wilson.  His  sour 
evangelicism  led  him  to  the  same  conclusion  as 
the  avarice  of  a  less  disinterested  Yorkshire 
schoolmaster ;  he  would  have  bade  them  con- 
quer human  nature.  Being  a  very  proud  man, 
he  sought  to  cultivate  humility  in  others.  The 
children  were  all  dressed  alike,  all  wearing  in 
summer  plain  straw  cottage  bonnets,  white 
frocks  on  Sundays  and  nankeen  in  the  week ; 
all  wearing  in  winter  purple  stuff  frocks  and 
purple  pelisses  —  a  serviceable  and  appropriate 
raiment  which  should  allow  no  envies,  jeal- 
ousies, or  flatteries.  They  should  not  be  vain, 
neither  should  they  be  greedy.  A  request 
for  nicer-tasting  food  would  have  branded  the 
asker  with  the  lasting  contempt  of  the  Rev. 
William  Carus  Wilson,  trustee,  treasurer,   and 


COWAN'S  BRIDGE. 


47 


secretary.  They  were  to  learn  that  it  was 
wrong  to  like  pretty  things  to  wear,  nice  things 
to  eat,  pleasant  games  to  play ;  these  little  schol- 
ars taken  half  on  charity.  Mr,  Wilson  was  re- 
pulsed by  the  apple-and-pegtop  side  of  a  child's 
nature  ;  he  deliberately  ignored  it. 

Once  in  this  grim,  cold,  hungry  house  of  char- 
ity, there  was  little  hope  of  escape.  All  letters 
and  parcels  were  inspected  by  the  superinten- 
dent ;  no  friends  of  the  pupils  were  allowed  in 
the  school,  except  for  a  short  call  of  ceremony. 
But  it  is  probable  that  Maria  and  Elizabeth, 
sent  on  before,  had  no  thought  of  warning  their 
smaller  sisters.  So  destitute  of  all  experience 
were  they,  that  probably  they  imagined  all 
schools  like  Cowan's  Bridge;  so  anxious  to 
learn,  that  no  doubt  they  willingly  accepted  the 
cold,  hunger,  deliberate  unkindness,  which  made 
their  childhood  anxious  and  old. 

The  lot  fell  heaviest  on  the  elder  sister,  clever, 
gentle,  slovenly  Maria.  The  principal  lesson 
taught  at  Cowan's  Bridge  was  the  value  of 
routine. 

Maria,  with  her  careless  ways,  ready  opinions, 
gentle  loving  incapacity  to  become  a  machine, 
Maria  was  at  discord  with  every  principle  of 
Cowan's  Bridge.  She  incurred  the  bitter  re- 
sentment of  one  of  the  teachers,  who  sought 
all    means    of    humiliating   and   mortifying   the 


48  EMILY  BRONTE. 

sweet-natured,  shiftless  little  creature.  When, 
in  September,  bright,  talkative  Charlotte  and 
baby  Emily  came  to  Cowan's  Bridge,  they  found 
their  idolized  little  mother,  their  Maria,  the  butt, 
laughing-stock,  and  scapegrace  of  the  school. 

Things  were  better  for  the  two  younger  ones, 
Charlotte,  a  bright  clever  little  girl,  and  Emily, 
the  prettiest  of  the  little  sisters,  "  a  darling  child, 
under  five  years  of  age,  quite  the  pet  nursling 
of  the  school."  *  But  though  at  first,  no  doubt, 
these  two  babies  were  pleased  by  the  change 
of  scene  and  the  companionship  of  children, 
trouble  was  to  befall  them.  Not  the  mere  dis- 
tasteful scantiness  of  their  food,  the  mere  cold 
of  their  bodies  :  they  saw  their  elder  sister  grow 
thinner,  paler  day  by  day,  no  care  taken  of  her, 
no  indulgence  made  for  her  weakness.  The 
poor  ill-used,  ill-nouriyhed  child  grew  very  ill 
without  complaining ;  but  at  last  even  the  au- 
thorities at  Cowan's  Bridge  perceived  that  she 
was  dying.  They  sent  for  Mr.  Bronte  in  the 
spring  of  1825.  He  had  not  heard  of  her  illness 
in  any  of  his  children's  letters,  duly  inspected 
by  the  superintendent.  He  had  heard  no  tales 
of  poor  food,  damp  rooms,  neglect.  He  came 
to  Cowan's  Bridge  and  saw  Maria,  his  clever 
little  companion,  thin,  wasted,  dying.  The  poor 
father  felt  a  terrible  shock.     He  took  her  home 

1  Mrs.  Harben  to  Mrs.  Gaskell. 


COWAN'S  BRIDGE. 


49 


with  him,  away  from  the  three  little  sisters  who 
strained  their  eyes  to  look  after  her.  She  went 
home  to  Havvorth.  A  few  days  afterwards  she 
died. 

Not  many  weeks  after  Maria's  death,  when 
the  spring  made"Lowood"  bearable,  when  the 
three  saddened  little  sisters  no  longer  waked 
at  night  for  the  cold,  no  longer  lame  with  bleed- 
ing feet,  could  walk  in  the  sunshine  and  pick 
flowers,  when  April  grew  into  May,  an  epidemic 
of  sickness  came  over  Cowan's  Bridge.  The 
girls  one  by  one  grew  weak  and  heavy,  neither 
scolding  nor  texts  roused  them  now ;  instead  of 
spending  their  play-hours  in  games  in  the  sweet 
spring  air,  instead  of  picking  flowers  or  running 
races,  these  growing  children  grew  all  languid, 
flaccid,  indolent.  There  was  no  stirring  them 
to  work  or  play.  Increasing  illness  among  the 
girls  made  even  their  callous  guardians  anxious 
at  last.  Elizabeth  Bronte  was  one  of  the  first 
to  flag.  It  was  not  the  fever  that  ailed  her,  the 
mysterious  undeclared  fever  that  brooded  over 
the  house ;  her  frequent  cough,  brave  spirits, 
clear  color,  pointed  to  another  goal.  They  sent 
her  home  in  the  care  of  a  servant ;  and  before 
the  summer  flushed  the  scanty  borders  of  flow- 
ers on  the  newest  graves  in  Haworth  church- 
yard, Elizabeth  Bronte  was  dead,  no  more  to 
hunger,  freeze,  or  sorrow.     Her  hard  life  of  ten 

4 


5o  EMILY  BRONTE. 

years  was  over.  The  second  of  the  Bronte 
sisters  had  fallen  a  victim  to  consumption. 

Discipline  was  suddenly  relaxed  for  those 
remaining  behind  at  Cowan's  Bridge.  There 
was  more  to  eat,  for  there  were  fewer  mouths 
to  feed  ;  there  was  more  time  to  play  and  walk, 
for  there  were  none  to  watch  and  restrain  the 
eager  children,  who  played,  eat,  shouted,  ran 
riot,  with  a  certain  sense  of  relief,  although  they 
knew  they  were  only  free  because  death  was  in 
the  house  and  pestilence  in  the  air. 

The  woody  hollow  of  Cowan's  Bridge  was 
foggy,  unwholesome,  clamp.  The  scholars  under- 
fed, cramped,  neglected.  Their  strange  indo- 
lence and  heaviness  grew  stronger  and  stronger 
with  the  spring.  All  at  once  forty-five  out  of 
the  eighty  girls  lay  sick  of  typhus-fever.  Many 
were  sent  home  only  to  die,  some  died  at 
Cowan's  Bridge.  All  that  could,  sent  for  their 
children  home.  Among  the  few  who  stayed  in 
the  fever-breeding  hollow,  in  the  contaminated 
house,  where  the  odors  of  pastilles  and  drugs 
blended  with,  but  could  not  conquer,  the  faint 
sickening  smell  of  fever  and  mortality,  among 
these  abandoned  few  were  Charlotte  and  Emily 
Bronte. 

Thanks  to  the  free,  reckless  life,  the  sunshine, 
the  novel  abundance  of  food,  the  two  children 
did  not  take  the  infection.     Things,  indeed,  were 


COWAN'S  BRIDGE. 


51 


brighter  for  them  now,  or  would  have  been, 
could  the  indignant  spirit  in  these  tiny  bodies 
have  forgiven  or  forgotten  the  deaths  of  their 
two  sisters. 

Reform  had  come  to  Cowan's  Bridge,  and 
with  swift  strides  cleared  away  the  old  order 
of  things.  The  site  was  declared  unhealthy ; 
the  clothing  insufficient ;  the  water  fetid  and 
brackish.  When  the  doctor  who  inspected  the 
school  was  asked  to  taste  the  daily  food  of  the 
scholars  he  spat  it  out  of  his  mouth.  Every- 
thing, everything  must  be  altered.  It  was  a 
time  of  sore  and  grievous  humiliation  to  Mr. 
Wilson.  He  had  felt  no  qualms,  no  doubts  ;  he 
had  worked  very  hard,  he  thought  things  were 
going  very  well.  The  accounts  were  in  excel- 
lent order,  the  education  thorough  and  good, 
the  system  elaborate,  the  girls  really  seemed  to 
be  acquiring  a  meek  and  quiet  spirit;  and,  to 
quote  the  prospectus,  "  the  great  object  in  view 
is  their  intellectual  and  religious  improvement." 
Then  stepped  in  unreckoned-with  disease,  and 
the  model  institution  became  a  by-word  of  re- 
proach to  the  county  and  the  order  to  which  it 
belonged.  People,  however,  were  not  unjust  to 
the  influential  and  wealthy  treasurer,  trustee, 
and  secretary.  They  admitted  his  energy,  finan- 
cial capacities,  and  turn  for  organization.  All 
they  did  was  to  qualify  the  rigor  of  his  man- 


52 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


agement.  He  still  continued  treasurer,  but  the 
funds  were  intrusted  to  a  committee.  He  kept 
his  post  of  inspector,  but  assistants  were  ap- 
pointed to  share  his  responsibilities.  The  school 
was  given  in  charge  to  a  new  housekeeper ; 
larger  and  better  rations  of  food  were  given  out. 
Finally  a  subscription  was  set  on  foot  to  build 
a  better  house  in  a  healthier  spot.  When  Char- 
lotte and  Emily  Bronte  went  home  for  the  mid- 
summer holidays,  reform  was  in  full  swing  at 
Cowan's  Bridge. 

They  went  home,  two  out  of  the  four  children 
who  had  left  their  happy  home  six  months  be- 
fore. They  went  home  to  find  no  motherly 
Maria,  no  sturdy,  patient  Elizabeth.  The  walks 
on  the  moors,  the  tales  under  the  thorn-trees, 
must  henceforth  be  incomplete.  The  two  elders 
of  that  little  band  were  no  longer  to  be  found 
in  house  or  garden  —  they  lay  quiet  under  a 
large  paving-stone  close  to  the  vicarage  pew  at 
church.  The  three  little  sisters,  the  one  little 
brother,  must  have  often  thought  on  their  quiet 
neighbors  when  the  sermon  was  very  long. 
Thus  early  familiarized  and  neighborly  with 
death,  one  of  them  at  least,  tall,  courageous 
Emily,  grew  up  to  have  no  dreary  thoughts  of 
it,  neither  any  dreams  of  a  far-off  heaven. 

When  the  holidays  were  over,  the  two  sisters 
returned    to    school.       Their   father,    strangely 


COWAN'S  BRIDGE.  53 

enough,  had  no  fear  to  send  them  to  that  fatal 
place.  Their  aunt,  with  her  two  favorites  at 
home,  was  not  over-anxious.  Charlotte  and 
Emily  went  back  to  Cowan's  Bridge.  But  be- 
fore the  winter  they  were  ill :  the  damp  air,  the 
unhealthy  site  (for  as  yet  the  new  house  was 
not  built),  brought  out  the  weakness  of  their 
constitutions.  Bearing  the  elder  sisters'  fate 
in  view,  the  authorities  warned  Mr.  Bronte,  and 
the  two  children  came  home  to  Haworth. 


CHAPTER   IV. 


CHILDHOOD. 


The  home  to  which  Charlotte  and  Emily  re- 
turned was  not  a  very  much  more  healthy  spot 
than  that  they  left ;  but  it  was  home.  It  was 
windy  and  cold,  and  badly  drained.  Mr.  Bronte 
was  ever  striving  to  stir  up  his  parishioners  to 
improve  the  sanitary  conditions  of  the  place ; 
but  for  many  years  his  efforts  were  in  vain. 
The  canny  Yorkshire  folk  were  loth  to  put  their 
money  underground,  and  it  was  hard  to  make 
them  believe  that  the  real  cause  of  the  frequent 
epidemics  and  fevers  in  Haworth  was  such  as 
could  be  cured  by  an  effective  system  of  subsoil 
drainage.  It  was  cheaper  and  easier  to  lay  the 
blame  at  the  doors  of  Providence.  So  the  par- 
son preached  in  vain.  Well  might  he  preach, 
for  his  own  house  was  in  the  thick  of  the  evil. 

"As  you  left  the  Parsonage  gate  you  looked 
upon  the  stonecutter's  chipping-shed,  which  was 
piled  with  slabs  ready  for  use,  and  to  the  ear 
there  was  the  incessant  'chip,  chip'  of  the  re- 
cording chisel  as  it  graved  in  the  '  In  Memo- 
riams  '  of  the  departed." 


CHILDHOOD. 


55 


So  runs  Miss  Nussey's  manuscript.  She  also 
tells  of  the  constant  sound  of  the  passing-bell ; 
of  the  frequent  burials  in  the  thronged  church- 
yard. No  cheerful,  healthy  home  for  sensitive, 
delicate  children. 

"  From  the  Parsonage  windows  the  first  view 
was  the  plot  of  grass  edged  by  a  wall,  a  thorn- 
tree  or  two,  and  a  few  shrubs  and  currant-bushes 
that  did  not  grow.  Next  to  these  was  the 
large  and  half-surrounding  churchyard,  so  full 
of  gravestones  that  hardly  a  strip  of  grass  could 
be  seen  in  it." 

Beyond  this  the  moors,  the  wild,  barren,  tree- 
less moors,  that  stretch  away  for  miles  and  miles, 
feeding  a  few  herds  of  mountain  sheep,  harbor- 
ing some  wild  conies  and  hares,  giving  a  nesting- 
place  to  the  birds  of  heaven,  and,  for  the  use  of 
man,  neither  grain  nor  pasturage,  but  quarries  of 
stone  and  piles  of  peat  luridly  smouldering  up 
there  on  autumn  nights. 

Such  is  the  home  to  which  Emily  Bronte  clung 
with  the  passionate  love  of  the  Swiss  for  his 
white  mountains,  with  a  homesickness  in  absence 
that  strained  the  very  cords  of  life.  Yet  her 
childhood  in  that  motherless  home  had  few  of 
the  elements  of  childish  happiness,  and  its  busy 
strictness  of  daily  life  was  saddened  by  the  loss 
of  Maria  and  Elizabeth,  dear,  never-forgotten 
playfellows.      Charlotte,  now  the  eldest  of  the 


56  EMILY  BRONTE. 

family,  was  only  two  years  older  than  Emily,  but 
her  sense  of  responsibility  made  her  seem  quite 
of  a  different  age.  It  was  little  Anne  who  was 
Emily's  companion  —  delicate,  shrinking,  pretty 
Anne,  Miss  Branwell's  favorite.  Anne  could 
enter  only  into  the  easiest  or  lightest  of  her 
sister's  moods,  and  yet  she  was  so  dear  that 
Emily  never  sought  another  friend.  So  from 
childhood  she  grew  accustomed  to  keep  her  own 
confidence  upon  her  deepest  thoughts  and  live- 
liest fancies. 

A  quiet  regular  life  —  carpet-brushing,  sew- 
ing, dusting  in  the  morning.  Then  some  neces- 
sary lessons  said  to  their  aunt  up-stairs  ;  then,  in 
the  evening,  while  Mr.  Bronte  wrote  his  sermons 
in  the  study  and  Miss  Bran  well  sat  in  her  bed- 
room, the  four  children,  alone  in  the  parlor,  or 
sitting  by  the  kitchen  fire,  while  Tabby,  the  ser- 
vant, moved  briskly  about,  would  write  their 
magazines  or  make  their  plays. 

There  was  a  great  deal  about  politics  still  in 
the  plays.  Mr.  Bronte,  who  took  a  keen  interest 
in  the  affairs  of  the  world,  always  told  the  chil- 
dren the  chief  public  news  of  the  clay,  and  let 
them  read  what  newspapers  and  magazines  they 
could  lay  hold  on.  So  the  little  Brontes  prattled 
of  the  Duke  of  Wellington  when  other  children 
still  have  Jack  the  Giant-killer  for  a  hero  ;  the 
Marquis  of  Douro  was  their  Prince  Charming; 


CHILDHOOD. 


57 


their  Yahoos,  the  Catholics  ;    their  potent  evil 
genii,  the  Liberal  Ministry. 

"  Our  plays  were  established,"  says  Charlotte, 
the  family  chronicler,  in  her  history  of  the  year 
1829:  "'Young  Men,'  June,  1826;  'Our  Fel- 
lows,' July,  1827;  'Islanders,'  December,  1827. 
These  are  our  three  great  plays  that  are  not  kept 
secret.  Emily's  and  my  best  plays  were  estab- 
lished the  1st  of  December,  1827;  the  others, 
March,  1828.  Best  plays  mean  secret  plays  ; 
they  are  very  nice  ones.  All  our  plays  are  very 
strange  ones.  Their  nature  I  need  not  write  on 
paper,  for  I  think  I  shall  always  remember  them. 
The  '  Young  Men's '  play  took  its  rise  from  some 
wooden  soldiers  Branwell  had  ;  '  Our  Fellows,' 
from  vEsop's  Fables ;  and  the  ■  Islanders,'  from 
several  events  which  happened.  I  will  sketch 
out  the  origin  of  our  plays  more  explicitly  if  I 
can.  First,  '  Young  Men.'  Papa  bought  Bran- 
well  some  wooden  soldiers  at  Leeds ;  when  papa 
came  home  it  was  night,  and  we  were  in  bed,  so 
next  morning  Branwell  came  to  our  door "  (the 
little  room  over  the  passage :  Anne  slept  with 
her  aunt)  "  with  a  box  of  soldiers.  Emily  and  I 
jumped  out  of  bed,  and  I  snatched  up  one  and 
exclaimed,  '  This  is  the  Duke  of  Wellington  ! 
This  shall  be  the  Duke.'  When  I  had  said  this, 
Emily  likewise  took  one  up  and  said  it  should 
be  hers ;  when  Anne  came  down,  she  said  one 


58  EMILY  BRONTE. 

should  be  hers.  Mine  was  the  prettiest  of  the 
whole,  the  tallest  and  the  most  perfect  in  every 
part.  Emily's  was  a  grave-looking  fellow,  and 
we  called  him  '  Gravey.'  Anne's  was  a  queer 
little  thing,  much  like  herself,  and  we  called  him 
'  Waiting-boy.'  Branwell  chose  his,  and  called 
him  Bonaparte." 

In  another  play  Emily  chooses  Sir  Walter 
Scott,  Mr.  Lockhart,  and  Johnny  Lockhart  as 
her  representatives  ;  Charlotte,  the  Duke  of  Wel- 
lington, the  Marquis  of  Douro,  Mr.  Abernethy, 
and  Christopher  North.  This  last  personage 
was  indeed  of  great  importance  in  the  eyes  of 
the  children,  for  Blackwood's  Magazine  was  their 
favorite  reading.  On  their  father's  shelves  were 
few  novels,  and  few  books  of  poetry.  The  cler- 
gyman's study  necessarily  boasted  its  works  of 
divinity  and  reference;  for  the  children  there 
were  only  the  wild  romances  of  Southey,  the 
poems  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  left  by  their  Cornish 
mother,  and  "some  mad  Methodist  magazines 
full  of  miracles  and  apparitions  and  preternatural 
warnings,  ominous  dreams  and  frenzied  fanati- 
cism ;  and  the  equally  mad  letters  of  Mrs.  Eliza- 
beth Rowe  from  the  Dead  to  the  Living,"  familiar 
to  readers  of  '  Shirley.'  To  counterbalance  all 
this  romance  and  terror,  the  children  had  their 
interest  in  politics  and  Blackwood's  Magazine, 
"  the  most  able  periodical  there  is,"  says  thirteen- 


CHILDHOOD. 


59 


year-old  Charlotte.  They  also  saw  John  Bull, 
"a  high  Tory,  very  violent,  the  Leeds  Mercury, 
Leeds  Lntelligencer,  a  most  excellent  Tory  news- 
paper," and  thus  became  accomplished  fanatics 
in  all  the  burning  questions  of  the  day. 

Miss  Branwell  took  care  that  the  girls  should 
not  lack  more  homely  knowledge.  Each  took 
her  share  in  the  day's  work,  and  learned  all  de- 
tails of  it  as  accurately  as  any  German  maiden 
at  her  cookery  school.  Emily  took  very  kindly 
to  even  the  hardest  housework  ;  there  she  felt 
able  and  necessary ;  and,  doubtless,  up-stairs, 
grimly  listening  to  prim  Miss  Branwell's  stories 
of  bygone  gayeties,  this  awkward,  growing  girl 
was  glad  to  remember  that  she  too  was  of  im- 
portance to  the  household,  despite  her  tongue- 
tied  brooding. 

The  girls  fared  well  enough  ;  but  not  so  their 
brother.  Branwell's  brilliant  purposelessness, 
Celtic  gayety,  love  of  amusement,  and  light  heart 
made  him  the  most  charming  playfellow,  but  a 
very  anxious  charge.  Friends  advised  Mr.  Bronte 
to  send  his  son  to  school,  but  the  peculiar  vanity 
which  made  him  model  his  children's  youth  in 
all  details  on  his  own  forbade  him  to  take  their 
counsel.  Since  he  had  fed  on  potatoes,  his  chil- 
dren should  eat  no  meat.  Since  he  had  grown 
up  at  home  as  best  he  might,  why  should  Patrick 
Branwell  go  to  school  ?     Every  day  the  father 


60  EMILY  BRONTE. 

gave  a  certain  portion  of  his  time  to  working 
with  his  boy ;  but  a  clergyman's  time  is  not  his 
own,  and  often  he  was  called  away  on  parish 
business.  Doubtless  Mr.  Bronte  thought  these 
tutorless  hours  were  spent,  as  he  would  have 
spent  them,  in  earnest  preparation  of  difficult 
tasks.  But  Branwell,  with  all  his  father's  super- 
ficial charm  of  manner,  was  without  the  un- 
derlying strength  of  will,  and  he  possessed, 
unchecked,  the  temptations  to  self-indulgence, 
to  which  his  father  seldom  yielded,  counteract- 
ing them  rather  by  an  ascetic  regimen  of  life. 
These  long  afternoons  were  spent,  not  in  work, 
but  in  mischievous  companionship  with  the 
wilder  spirits  of  the  village,  to  whom  "  t'  Vicar's 
Patrick"  was  the  standard  of  brilliant  leadership 
in  scrapes. 

No  doubt  their  admiration  flattered  Branwell, 
and  he  enjoyed  the  noisy  fun  they  had  together. 
Nevertheless  he  did  not  quite  neglect  his  sisters. 
Charlotte  has  said  that  at  this  time  she  loved 
him  even  as  her  own  soul  —  a  serious  phrase 
upon  those  serious  lips.  But  it  was  Emily  and 
Branwell  who  were  most  to  each  other :  bright, 
shallow,  exacting  brother  ;  silent,  deep-brooding, 
unselfish  sister,  more  anxious  to  give  than  to 
receive.  In  January,  183 1,  Charlotte  went  to 
school  at  Miss  Wooler's,  at  Roe  Head,  twenty 
miles    away ;    and    Branwell    and    Emily   were 


CHILDHOOD.  6r 

thrown  yet  more  upon  each  other  for  sympathy 
and  entertainment. 

Charlotte  stayed  a  year  and  a  half  at  school, 
and  returned  in  the  July  of  1832  to  teach  Emily 
and  Anne  what  she  had  learnt  in  her  absence  ; 
English-French,  English,  and  drawing  was  pretty 
nearly  all  the  instruction  she  could  give.  Hap- 
pily genius  needs  no  curriculum.  Nevertheless 
the  sisters  toiled  to  extract  their  utmost  boon 
from  such  advantages  as  came  within  their  range. 
Every  morning  from  nine  till  half-past  twelve 
they  worked  at  their  lessons  ;  then  they  walked 
together  over  the  moors,  just  coming  into  flower. 
These  moors  knew  a  different  Emily  to  the  quiet 
girl  of  fourteen  who  helped  in  the  housework  and 
learned  her  lessons  so  regularly  at  home.  On  the 
moors  she  was  gay,  frolicsome,  almost  wild.  She 
would  set  the  others  laughing  with  her  quaint, 
humorous  sallies  and  genial  ways.  She  was  quite 
at  home  there,  taking  the  fledgling  birds  in  her 
hands  so  softly  that  they  were  not  afraid,  and 
telling  stories  to  them.  A  strange  figure  —  tall, 
slim,  angular,  with  all  her  inches  not  yet  grown  ; 
a  quantity  of  dark-brown  hair,  deep  beautiful 
hazel  eyes  that  could  flash  with  passion,  features 
somewhat  strong  and  stern,  the  mouth  prominent 
and  resolute. 

The  sisters,  and  sometimes  Branwell,  would 
go  far  on  the  moors  ;  sometimes  four  miles  to 


62  EMILY  BRONTE. 

Keighley  in  the  hollow  over  the  ridge,  unseen 
from  the  heights,  but  brooded  over  always  by  a 
dim  film  of  smoke,  seemingly  the  steam  rising 
from  some  fiery  lake.  The  sisters  now  subscribed 
to  a  circulating  library  at  Keighley,  and  would 
gladly  undertake  the  rough  walk  of  eight  miles 
for  the  sake  of  bringing  back  with  them  a  novel 
by  Scott,  or  a  poem  by  Southey.  At  Keighley, 
too,  they  bought  their  paper.  The  stationer  used 
to  wonder  how  they  could  get  through  so  much. 
Other  days  they  went  over  Stanbury  Moor  to 
the  Waterfall,  a  romantic  glen  in  the  heathy  side 
of  the  hill  where  a  little  stream  drips  over  great 
boulders,  and  where  some  slender  delicate  birches 
spring,  a  wonder  in  this  barren  country.  This 
was  a  favorite  haunt  of  Emily,  and  indeed  they 
all  loved  the  spot.  Here  they  would  use  some 
of  their  paper,  for  they  still  kept  up  their  old 
habit  of  writing  tales  and  poems,  and  loved  to 
scribble  out  of  doors.  And  some  of  it  they  would 
use  in  drawing,  since  at  this  time  they  were  tak- 
ing lessons,  and  Emily  and  Charlotte  were  de- 
voted to  the  art :  Charlotte  making  copies  with 
minuteness  and  exact  fidelity ;  Emily  drawing 
animals  and  still-life  with  far  greater  freedom 
and  certainty  of  touch.  Some  of  Charlotte's 
paper,  also,  must  have  gone  in  letter-writing. 
She  had  made  friends  at  school,  an  event  of  great 
importance  to  that  narrow  circle.     One  of  these 


CHILDHOOD.  63 

friends,  the  dearest,  was  unknown  to  Haworth. 
Many  a  time  must  Emily  and  Anne  have  listened 
to  accounts  of  the  pretty,  accomplished,  lively 
girl,  a  favorite  in  many  homes,  who  had  won  the 
heart  of  their  shy  plain  sister.  She  was,  indeed, 
used  to  a  very  different  life,  this  fair  young  girl, 
but  her  bright  youth  and  social  pleasures  did  not 
blind  her  to  the  fact  that  oddly  dressed,  old- 
fashioned  Charlotte  Bronte  was  the  most  remark- 
able person  of  her  acquaintance.  She  was  the 
first,  outside  Charlotte's  home,  to  discover  her 
true  character  and  genius  ;  and  that  at  an  age, 
in  a  position,  when  most  girls  would  be  too  busy 
with  visions  of  a  happy  future  for  themselves  to 
sympathize  with  the  strange  activities,  the  mor- 
bid sensitiveness,  of  such  a  mind  as  Charlotte 
possessed.  But  so  early  this  girl  loved  her  ;  and 
lives  still,  the  last  to  have  an  intimate  recollec- 
tion of  the  ways,  persons,  and  habits  of  the  Bronte 
household. 

In  September,  1832,  Charlotte  left  home  again 
on  a  fortnight's  visit  to  the  home  of  this  dear 
friend.  Branwell  took  her  there.  He  had  prob- 
ably never  been  from  home  before.  He  was 
in  wild  spirits  at  the  beauty  of  the  house  and 
grounds,  inspecting,  criticising  everything,  pour- 
ing out  a  stream  of  comments,  rich  in  studio 
terms,  taking  views  in  every  direction  of  the  old 
battlemented  house,  and  choosing  "bits"   that 


64  EMILY  BRONTE. 

he  would  like  to  paint,  delighting  the  whole 
family  with  his  bright  cleverness  and  happy 
Irish  ways.  Meanwhile  Charlotte  looked  on, 
shy  and  dull.  "  I  leave  you  in  Paradise  !  "  cried 
Branwell,  and  betook  himself  over  the  moor  to 
make  fine  stories  of  his  visit  to  Emily  and  Anne 
in  the  bare  little  parlor  at  Haworth. 

Charlotte's  friend,  Ellen,  sent  her  home  laden 
with  apples  for  her  two  young  sisters :  "  Elles 
disent  qu'elles  sont  sur  que  Mademoiselle  E.  est 
tres-aimable  et  bonne ;  l'une  et  l'autre  sont  ex- 
tremement  impatientes  de  vous  voir;  j'espere  que 

dans  peu  de  mois  elles  auront  ce  plaisir " 

So  writes  Charlotte  in  the  quaint  Anglo-French 
that  the  friends  wrote  to  each  other  for  practice. 
But  winter  was  approaching,  and  winter  is  dreary 
at  Haworth.  Miss  Branwell  persuaded  the  eager 
girls  to  put  off  their  visitor  till  summer  made  the 
moors  warm  and  dry  and  beautiful,  so  that  the 
young  people  could  spend  much  of  their  time  out 
of  doors.  In  the  summer  of  1833  Ellen  came  to 
Haworth. 

Miss  Ellen  Nussey  is  the  only  person  living 
who  knew  Emily  Bronte  on  terms  of  intimate 
equality,  and  her  testimony  carries  out  that  of 
those  humbler  friends  who  helped  the  parson's 
busy  daughter  in  her  cooking  and  cleaning ;  from 
all  alike  we  hear  of  an  active,  genial,  warm- 
hearted girl,  full  of  humor  and  feeling  to  those 


CHILDHOOD.  65 

she  knew,  though  shy  and  cold  in  her  bearing  to 
strangers.  A  different  being  to  the  fierce  im- 
passioned Vestal  who  has  seated  herself  in  Em- 
ily's place  of  remembrance. 

In  1833  Emily  was  nearly  fifteen,  a  tall,  long- 
armed  girl,  full  grown,  elastic  of  tread  ;  with  a 
slight  figure  that  looked  queenly  in  her  best 
dresses,  but  loose  and  boyish  when  she  slouched 
over  the  moors,  whistling  to  her  dogs,  and  taking 
long  strides  over  the  rough  earth.  A  tall,  thin, 
loose-jointed  girl  —  not  ugly,  but  with  irregular 
features  and  a  pallid  thick  complexion.  Her 
dark-brown  hair  was  naturally  beautiful,  and  in 
later  days  looked  well,  loosely  fastened  with  a 
tall  comb  at  the  back  of  her  head  ;  but  in  1833 
she  wore  it  in  an  unbecoming  tight  curl  and 
frizz.  She  had  very  beautiful  eyes  of  hazel  color. 
"  Kind,  kindling,  liquid  eyes,"  says  the  friend  who 
survives  all  that  household.  She  had  an  aquiline 
nose,  a  large,  expressive,  prominent  mouth.  She 
talked  little.  No  grace  or  style  in  dress  be- 
longed to  Emily,  but  under  her  awkward  clothes 
her  natural  movements  had  the  lithe  beauty  of 
the  wild  creatures  that  she  loved.  She  was  a 
great  walker,  spending  all  her  leisure  on  the 
moors.  She  loved  the  freedom  there,  the  large 
air.  She  loved  the  creatures,  too.  Never  was 
a  soul  with  a  more  passionate  love  of  Mother 
Earth,  of  every  weed  and  flower,  of  every  bird, 
s 


66  EMILY  BRONTE. 

beast,  and  insect  that  lived.  She  would  have 
peopled  the  house  with  pets  had  not  Miss  Bran- 
well  kept  her  niece's  love  of  animals  in  due  sub- 
jection. Only  one  dog  was  allowed,  who  was 
admitted  into  the  parlor  at  stated  hours,  but  out 
of  doors  Emily  made  friends  with  all  the  beasts 
and  birds.  She  would  come  home  carrying  in 
her  hands  some  young  bird  or  rabbit,  and  softly 
talking  to  it  as  she  came.  "  Ee,  Miss  Emily," 
the  young  servant  would  say,  "  one  would  think 
the  bird  could  understand  you."  "  I  am  sure 
it  can,"  Emily  would  answer.  "  Oh,  I  am  sure  it 
can." 

The  girls  would  take  their  friend  long  walks 
on  the  moor.  When  they  went  very  far,  Tabby, 
their  old  factotum,  insisted  on  escorting  them, 
unless  Branwell  took  that  duty  on  himself,  for 
they  were  still  "childer"  in  her  eyes.  Emily 
and  Anne  walked  together.  They  and  Branwell 
would  ford  the  streams  and  place  stepping-stones 
for  the  elder  girls.  At  every  point  of  view,  at 
every  flower,  the  happy  little  party  would  stop 
to  talk,  admire,  and  theorize  in  concert.  Emily's 
reserve  had  vanished  as  morning  mists.  She 
was  full  of  glee  and  gladness,  on  her  own  de- 
mesne, no  longer  awkward  and  silent.  On  fine 
days  Emily  and  Anne  would  persuade  the  others 
to  walk  to  the  Waterfall,  which  made  an  island 
of  brilliant  green  turf  in  the  midst  of  the  heather, 


CHILDHOOD. 


67 


set  with  clear  springs,  shaded  with  here  and 
there  a  silver  birch,  and  dotted  with  gray  boul- 
ders, beautiful  resting-places.  Here  the  four 
girls  —  the  "quartette"  as  they  called  them- 
selves—  would  go  and  sit  and  listen  to  Ellen's 
stories  of  the  world  they  had  not  seen.  Or 
Emily,  half-reclining  on  a  slab  of  stone,  would 
play  like  a  young  child  with  the  tadpoles  in  the 
water,  making  them  swim  about,  and  she  would 
fall  to  moralizing  on  the  strong  and  the  weak, 
the  brave  and  the  cowardly,  as  she  chased  the 
creatures  with  her  hand.  Having  rested,  they 
would  trudge  home  again  a  merry  party,  save 
when  they  met  some  wandering  villager.  Then 
the  parson's  three  daughters  would  walk  on, 
hushed  and  timid. 

At  nine  the  sewing  was  put  by,  and  the  four 
girls  would  talk  and  laugh,  pacing  round  the 
parlor.  Miss  Bran  well  went  to  bed  early,  and 
the  young  people  were  left  alone  in  the  curtain- 
less,  clean  parlor,  with  its  gray  walls  and  horse- 
hair furniture.  But  with  good  company  no  room 
is  poorly  furnished  ;  and  they  had  much  to  say, 
and  much  to  listen  to,  on  nights  when  Branwell 
was  at  home.  Oftenest  they  must  have  missed 
him  ;  since,  whenever  a  visitor  stayed  at  the 
"Black  Bull,"* the  little  inn  across  the  church- 
yard, the  landlord  would  send  up  for  "  t'  Vicar's 
Patrick"  to  come  and  amuse  the  guests  with  his 
brilliant  rhodomontade. 


68  EMILY  BRONTE. 

Not  much  writing  went  on  in  Ellen's  presence, 
but  gay  discussion,  making  of  stories,  and  serious 
argument.  They  would  talk  sometimes  of  dead 
Maria  and  Elizabeth,  always  remembered  with 
an  intensity  of  love.  About  eight  o'clock  Mr. 
Bronte  would  call  the  household  to  family  pray- 
ers ;  and  an  hour  af tenvards  he  used  to  bolt  the 
front  door,  and  go  up-stairs  to  bed,  always  stop- 
ping at  the  sitting-room  with  a  kindly  admoni- 
tion to  the  "  children  "  not  to  be  late.  At  last 
the  girls  would  stop  their  chatter,  and  retire  for 
the  night,  Emily  giving  her  bed  to  the  visitor 
and  taking  a  share  of  the  servants'  room  her- 
self. 

At  breakfast  the  next  morning  Ellen  used  to 
listen  with  shrinking  amazement  to  the  stories 
of  wild  horror  that  Mr.  Bronte  loved  to  relate, 
fearful  stories  of  superstitious  Ireland,  or  bar- 
barous legends  of  the  rough  dwellers  on  the 
moors ;  Ellen  would  turn  pale  and  cold  to  hear 
them.  Sometimes  she  marvelled  as  she  caught 
sight  of  Emily's  face,  relaxed  from  its  company 
rigor,  while  she  stooped  down  to  hand  her  por- 
ridge-bowl to  the  dog :  she  wore  a  strange  ex- 
pression, gratified,  pleased,  as  though  she  had 
gained  something  which  seemed  to  complete  a 
picture  in  her  mind.  For  this  silent  Emily,  talk- 
ing little  save  in  rare  bursts  of  wild  spirits ;  this 
energetic   housewife,  cooking  and   cleaning   as 


CHILDHOOD.  69 

though  she  had  no  other  aim  in  view  than  the 
providing  for  the  day's  comfort ;  this  was  the 
same  Emily  who  at  five  years  of  age  used  to 
startle  the  nursery  with  her  fantastic  fairy  sto- 
ries. Two  lives  went  on  side  by  side  in  her 
heart,  neither  ever  mingling  with  or  interrupt- 
ing the  other.  Practical  housewife  with  capable 
hands,  dreamer  of  strange  horrors  :  each  self  was 
independent  of  the  companion  to  which  it  was 
linked  by  day  and  night.  People  in  those  days 
knew  her  but  as  she  seemed  —  "  t'  Vicar's  Em- 
ily"—  a  shy,  awkward  girl,  never  teaching  in 
the  Sunday  school  like  her  sisters,  never  talking 
with  the  villagers  like  merry  Branwell,  but  very 
good  and  hearty  in  helping  the  sick  and  dis- 
tressed :  not  pretty  in  the  village  estimation  — 
a  "  slinky  lass,"  no  prim,  trim  little  body  like 
pretty  Anne,  nor  with  Charlotte  Bronte's  taste 
in  dress;  just  a  clever  lass  with  a  spirit  of  her 
own.  So  the  village  judged  her.  At  home  they 
loved  her  with  her  strong  feelings,  untidy  frocks, 
indomitable  will,  and  ready  contempt  for  the 
common-place  ;  she  was  appreciated  as  a  dear 
and  necessary  member  of  the  household.  Of 
Emily's  deeper  self,  her  violent  genius,  neither 
friend  nor  neighbor  dreamed  in  those  days.  And 
to-day  it  is  only  this  Emily  who  is  remembered. 
Days  went  on,  pleasant  days  of  autumn,  in 
which  Charlotte  and  her  friend  roamed  across 


70 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


the  blooming  moors,  in  which  Anne  and  Emily 
would  take  their  little  stools  and  big  desks  into 
the  garden,  and  sit  and  scribble  under  the  cur- 
rant-bushes, stopping  now  and  then  to  pluck  the 
ripe  fruit.  Then  came  chill  October,  bringing 
cold  winds  and  rain.  Ellen  went  home,  leaving 
an  empty  chair  in  the  quartette,  leaving  Char- 
lotte lonelier,  and  even  Emily  and  Anne  a  little 
dull.  "  They  never  liked  any  one  as  well  as  you," 
says  Charlotte. 

Winter  came,  more  than  usually  unhealthy 
that  year,  and  the  moors  behind  the  house 
were  impassable  with  snow  and  rain.  Miss  Bran- 
well  continually  bemoaned  the  warm  and  flow- 
ery winters  of  Penzance,  shivering  over  the  fire 
in  her  bedroom ;  Mr.  Bronte  was  ill ;  outside  the 
air  was  filled  with  the  mournful  sound  of  the 
passing-bell.  But  the  four  young  people  sitting 
round  the  parlor  hearth-place  were  not  cold  or 
miserable.  They  were  dreaming  of  a  happy  and 
glorious  future,  a  great  career  in  Art ;  not  for 
Charlotte,  not  for  Emily  or  Anne,  they  were  only 
girls  ;  their  dreams  were  for  the  hope  and  prom- 
ise of  the  house  —  for  Branwell. 


CHAPTER  V. 


GOING    TO     SCHOOL. 


Emily  was  now  sixteen  years  old,  and  though 
the  people  in  the  village  called  her  "  t'  cleverest 
o'  t'  Bronte  childer,"  she  had  little  to  show  of  her 
cleverness.  Her  education  was  as  home-made 
as  her  gowns,  not  such  as  would  give  distinction 
to  a  governess  ;  and  a  governess  Emily  would 
have  to  be.  The  Bronte  sisters  were  too  severe 
and  noble  in  their  theories  of  life  ever  to  contem- 
plate marriage  as  a  means  of  livelihood ;  but 
even  worldly  sisters  would  have  owned  that  there 
was  little  chance  of  impatient  Emily  marrying 
at  all.  She  was  almost  violent  in  her  dislike  of 
strangers.  The  first  time  that  Ellen  stayed  at 
Haworth,  Charlotte  was  ill  one  day  and  could 
not  go  out  with  her  friend.  To  their  surprise 
Emily  volunteered  to  take  the  stranger  a  walk 
over  the  moors.  Charlotte  waited  anxiously  for 
their  return,  fearing  some  outbreak  of  impatience 
or  disdain  on  the  part  of  her  untamable  sister. 
The  two  girls  at  last  came  home.  M  How  did 
Emily  behave  ? "  asked  Charlotte,  eagerly,  draw- 


72 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


ing  her  friend  aside.  She  had  behaved  well ;  she 
had  shown  her  true  self,  her  noble,  energetic, 
truthful  soul,  and  from  that  day  there  was  a  real 
friendship  between  the  gentle  Ellen  and  the 
intractable  Emily  ;  but  none  the  less  does  Char- 
lotte's question  reveal  in  how  different  a  manner 
the  girl  regarded  strangers  as  a  rule.  In  after 
days  when  the  curates,  looking  for  Mr.  Bronte 
in  his  study,  occasionally  found  Emily  there  in- 
stead, they  used  to  beat  such  a  hasty  retreat  that 
it  was  quite  an  established  joke  at  the  Parsonage 
that  Emily  appeared  to  the  outer  world  in  the 
likeness  of  an  old  bear.  She  hated  strange  faces 
and  strange  places.  Her  sisters  must  have  seen 
that  such  a  temperament,  if  it  made  her  unlikely 
to  attract  a  husband  or  to  wish  to  attract  one, 
also  rendered  her  lamentably  unfit  to  earn  her 
living  as  a  governess.  In  those  days  they  could 
not  tell  that  the  defect  was  incurable,  a  congen- 
ital infirmity  of  nature ;  and  doubtless  Charlotte, 
the  wise  elder  sister,  thought  she  had  found  a 
cure  for  both  the  narrow  education  and  the  nar- 
row sympathies  when  she  suggested  that  Emily 
should  go  to  school.  She  writes  to  her  friend  in 
July,  1835  : 

"  I  had  hoped  to  have  had  the  extreme  pleas- 
ure of  seeing  you  at  Haworth  this  summer,  but 
human  affairs  are  mutable,  and  human  resolu- 
tions must  bend  to  the  course  of  events.     We 


GOING   TO  SCHOOL. 


73 


are  all  about  to  divide,  break  up,  separate. 
Emily  is  going  to  school,  Braiiwell  is  going  to 
London,  and  I  am  going  to  be  a  governess. 
This  last  determination  I  formed  myself,  know- 
ing I  should  have  to  take  the  step  sometime, 
and  '  better  sune  as  syne,'  to  use  a  Scotch  prov- 
erb; and  knowing  well  that  papa  would  have 
enough  to  do  with  his  limited  income,  should 
Branwell  be  placed  at  the  Royal  Academy  and 
Emily  at  Roe  Head.  Where  am  I  going  to 
reside  ?  you  will  ask.  Within  four  miles  of  you, 
at  a  place  neither  of  us  are  unacquainted  with, 
being  no  other  than  the  identical  Roe  Head 
mentioned  above.  Yes !  I  am  going  to  teach 
in  the  very  school  where  I  was  myself  taught. 
Miss  Wooler  made  me  the  offer,  and  I  preferred 
it  to  one  or  two  proposals  of  private  governess- 
ship  which  I  had  before  received.  I  am  sad  — 
very  sad  —  at  the  thoughts  of  leaving  home  ;  but 
duty  —  necessity  —  these  are  stern  mistresses, 
who  will  not  be  disobeyed.  Did  I  not  once  say 
you  ought  to  be  thankful  for  your  independence  ? 
I  felt  what  I  said  at  the  time,  and  I  repeat  it 
now  with  double-  earnestness  ;  if  anything  would 
cheer  me  it  is  the  idea  of  being  so  near  you. 
Surely  you  and  Polly  will  come  and  see  me  ;  it 
would  be  wrong  in  me  to  doubt  it ;  you  were 
never  unkind  yet.  Emily  and  I  leave  home  on 
the  27th  of  this  month  ;  the  idea  of  being  to- 


74 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


gether  consoles  us  both  somewhat,  and,  truth, 
since  I  must  enter  a  situation,  '  My  lines  have 
fallen  in  pleasant  places,'  I  both  love  and  re- 
spect Miss  Wooler."  1 

The  wrench  of  leaving  home,  so  much  dreaded 
by  Charlotte,  was  yet  sharper  to  her  younger 
sister,  morbidly  fearful  of  strangers,  eccentric, 
unable  to  live  without  wide  liberty.  To  go  to 
school ;  it  must  have  had  a  dreadful  sound  to 
that  untamable,  free  creature,  happiest  alone  with 
the  dogs  on  the  moors,  with  little  sentiment  or 
instinct  for  friendship  ;  no  desire  to  meet  her 
fellows.  Emily  was  perfectly  happy  at  Haworth, 
cooking  the  dinner,  ironing  the  linen,  writing 
poems  at  the  Waterfall,  taking  her  dog  for  miles 
over  the  moors,  pacing  round  the  parlor  with  her 
arm  round  gentle  Anne's  waist.  Now  she  would 
have  to  leave  all  this,  to  separate  from  her  dear 
little  sister.  But  she  was  reasonable  and  just, 
and,  feeling  the  attempt  should  be  made,  she 
packed  up  her  scanty  wardrobe,  and,  without  re- 
pining, set  out  with  Charlotte  for  Roe  Head. 

Charlotte  knew  where  she  was  going.  She 
loved  and  respected  Miss  Wooler ;  but  with  what 
anxiety  must  Emily  have  looked  for  the  house 
where  she  was  to  live  and  not  to  be  at  home. 
At  last  she  saw  it,  a  cheerful,  roomy,  country 
house,  standing  a  little  apart  in  a  field.     There 

1  Mrs.  Gaskell. 


GOING    TO  SCHOOL.  75 

was  a  wide  and  pleasant  view  of  fields  and 
woods  ;  but  the  green  prospect  was  sullied  and 
marred  by  the  smoke  from  the  frequent  mills. 
Green  fields,  gray  mills,  all  told  of  industry, 
labor,  occupation.  There  was  no  wild  stretch  of 
moorland  here,  no  possibility  of  solitude.  I  think 
when  Emily  Bronte  saw  the  place,  she  must  have 
known  very  well  she  would  not  be  happy  there. 

"  My  sister  Emily  loved  the  moors,"  says 
Charlotte,  writing  of  these  days  in  the  latter  sol- 
itude —  "  flowers  brighter  than  the  rose  bloomed 
in  the  blackest  of  the  heath  for  her ;  out  of  a 
sullen  hollow  in  a  livid  hillside  her  mind  could 
make  an  Eden.  She  found  in  the  bleak  solitude 
many  and  dear  delights  ;  and  not  the  least  and 
best-loved  was  liberty.  Liberty  was  the  breath 
of  Emily's  nostrils ;  without  it  she  perished. 
The  change  from  her  own  home  to  a  school,  and 
from  her  own  very  noiseless,  very  secluded,  but 
unrestricted  and  unartificial  mode  of  life  to  one 
of  disciplined  routine  (though  under  the  kindest 
auspices)  was  what  she  failed  in  enduring.  Her 
nature  was  here  too  strong  for  her  fortitude. 
Every  morning,  when  she  woke,  the  visions  of 
home  and  the  moors  rushed  on  her,  and  dark- 
ened and  saddened  the  day  that  lay  before  her. 
Nobody  knew  what  ailed  her  but  me.  I  knew 
only  too  well.  In  this  struggle  her  health  was 
quickly  broken  :  her  white  face,  attenuated  form, 


7<5  EMILY  BRONTE. 

and  failing  strength  threatened  rapid  decline.  I 
felt  in  my  heart  she  would  die  if  she  did  not 
go  home." 

Thus  looking  on,  Charlotte  grew  alarmed.  She 
remembered  the  death  of  Maria  and  Elizabeth, 
and  feared,  feared  with  anguish,  lest  this  best- 
beloved  sister  should  follow  them.  She  told  Miss 
Wooler  of  her  fear,  and  the  schoolmistress,  con- 
scious of  her  own  kindness  and  a  little  resentful 
at  Emily's  distress,  consented  that  the  girl  should 
be  sent  home  without  delay.  She  did  not  care 
for  Emily,  and  was  not  sorry  to  lose  her.  So  in 
October  she  returned  to  Haworth,  to  the  only 
place  where  she  was  happy  and  well.  She  re- 
turned to  harder  work  and  plainer  living  than 
she  had  known  at  school ;  but  also  to  home,  lib- 
erty, comprehension,  her  animals,  and  her  flowers. 
In  her  native  atmosphere  she  very  soon  recovered 
the  health  and  strength  that  seemed  so  natural 
to  her  swift  spirit ;  that  were,  alas,  so  easily 
endangered.  She  had  only  been  at  school  three 
months. 

Even  so  short  an  absence  may  very  grievously 
alter  the  aspect  of  familiar  things.  Haworth 
itself  was  the  same  ;  prim,  tidy  Miss  Branwell 
still  pattered  about  in  her  huge  caps  and  tiny 
clogs;  the  Vicar  still  told  his  horrible  stories 
at  breakfast,  still  fought  vain  battles  with  the 
parishioners  who  would  not  drain  the  village, 


GOING    TO   SCHOOL.  yy 

and  the  women  who  would  dry  their  linen  on 
the  tombstones.  Anne  was  still  as  transpar- 
ently pretty,  as  pensive  and  pious  as  of  old  ;  but 
over  the  hope  of  the  house,  the  dashing,  clever 
Branwell,  who  was  to  make  the  name  of  Bronte 
famous  in  art,  a  dim,  tarnishing  change  had 
come.  Emily  must  have  seen  it  with  fresh 
eyes,  left  more  and  more  in  Branwell's  company, 
when,  after  the  Christmas  holidays,  Anne  re- 
turned with  Charlotte  to  Roe  Head. 

There  is  in  none  of  Charlotte's  letters  any 
further  talk  of  sending  Branwell  to  the  Royal 
Academy.  He  earnestly  desired  to  go,  and  for 
him,  the  only  son,  any.  sacrifice  had  willingly 
been  made.  But  there  were  reasons  why  that 
brilliant,  unprincipled  lad  should  not  be  trusted 
now,  alone  in  London.  Too  frequent  had  been 
those  visits  to  the  "  Black  Bull,"  undertaken,  at 
first,  to  amuse  the  travellers  from  London,  Leeds 
and  Manchester,  who  found  their  evenings  dull. 
The  Vicar's  lad  was  following  the  proverbial 
fate  of  parsons'  sons.  Little  as  they  foreboded 
the  end  in  store,  greatly  as  they  hoped  all  his 
errors  were  a  mere  necessary  attribute  of  manli- 
ness, the  sisters  must  have  read  in  his  shaken 
nerves  the  dissipation  for  which  their  clever 
Branwell  was  already  remarkable  in  Haworth. 
It  is  true  that  to  be  sometimes  the  worse  for 
drink  was  no  uncommon  fault  fifty  years  ago 


j8  EMILY  BRONTE. 

* 
in  Yorkshire ;  but  the  gradual  coarsening  of 
Branwell's  nature,  the  growing  flippancy,  the 
altered  health,  must  have  given  a  cruel  awaken- 
ing to  his  sisters'  dreams  for  his  career.  In 
1836  this  deterioration  was  at  the  beginning; 
a  weed  in  bud  that  could  only  bear  a  bitter  and 
poisonous  fruit.  Emily  hoped  the  best ;  his 
father  did  not  seem  to  see  his  danger ;  Miss 
Branwell  spoiled  the  lad  ;  and  the  village  thought 
him  a  mighty  pleasant  young  gentleman  with  a 
smile  and  a  bow  for  every  one,  fond  of  a  glass 
and  a  chat  in  the  pleasant  parlor  of  the  "  Black 
Bull "  at  nights ;  a  gay,  feckless,  red-haired, 
smiling  young  fellow,  full  of  ready  courtesies 
to  all  his  friends  in  the  village ;  yet,  none  the 
less  as  full  of  thoughtless  cruelties  to  his  friends 
at  home. 

For  the  rest,  he  had  nothing  to  do,  and  was 
scarcely  to  blame  if  he  could  not  devote  sixteen 
hours  a  day  to  writing  verses  for  the  Leeds  Mer- 
cury, his  only  ostensible  occupation.  It  seems 
incredible  that  Mr.  Bronte,  who  well  understood 
the  peculiar  temptations  to  which  his  son  lay 
open,  could  have  suffered  him  to  loaf  about  the 
village,  doing  nothing,  month  after  month,  lured 
into  ill  by  no  set  purpose,  but  by  a  weak  social 
temper  and  foolish  friends.  Yet  so  it  was,  and 
with  such  training,  little  hope  of  salvation  could 
there  be  for  that  vain,  somewhat  clever,  untruth- 
ful, fascinating  boy. 


GOING   TO  SCHOOL.  79 

So  things  went  on,  drearily  enough  in  reality, 
though  perhaps  more  pleasantly  in  seeming  — 
for  Branwell,  with  his  love  of  approbation  and 
ready  affectionateness,  took  all  trouble  consis- 
tent with  self-indulgence  to  avoid  the  noise  of 
his  misdemeanors  reaching  home.  Thus  things 
went  on  till  Charlotte  returned  from  Miss 
Wooler's  with  little  Anne  in  the  midsummer 
holidays  of  1836. 

An  interval  of  happiness  to  lonely  Emily ; 
Charlotte's  friend  came  to  the  gray,  cold-looking 
Parsonage,  enlivening  that  sombre  place  with 
her  gay  youth  and  sweet  looks.  Home  with 
four  young  girls  in  it  was  more  attractive  to 
Branwell  than  the  alluring  parlor  of  the  "  Black 
Bull."  The  harvest  moon  that  year  can  have 
looked  on  no  happier  meeting.  "  It  would  not 
be  right,"  says  the  survivor  of  those  eager  spirits, 
"  to  pass  over  one  record  which  should  be  made 
of  the  sisters'  lives  together,  after  their  school- 
days, and  before  they  were  broken  in  health  by 
their  efforts  to  support  themselves,  that  at  this 
time  they  had  all  a  taste  of  happiness  and  en- 
joyment. They  were  beginning  to  feel  conscious 
of  their  powers,  they  were  rich  in  each  other's 
companionship,  their  health  was  good,  their 
spirits  were  high,  there  was  often  joyousness 
and  mirth  ;  they  commented  on  what  they  read  ; 
analyzed   articles   and    their   writers   also ;    the 


So  EMILY  BRONTE. 

perfection  of  unrestrained  talk  and  intelligence 
brightened  the  close  of  the  days  which  were 
passing  all  too  swiftly.  The  evening  march  in 
the  sitting-room,  a  constant  habit  learned  at 
school,  kept  time  with  their  thoughts  and  feel- 
ings, it  was  free  and  rapid  ;  they  marched  in 
pairs,  Emily  and  Anne,  Charlotte  and  her  friend, 
with  arms  twined  round  each  other  in  childlike 
fashion,  except  when  Charlotte,  in  an  exuber- 
ance of  spirit,  would  for  a  moment  start  away, 
make  a  graceful  pirouette  (though  she  had  never 
learned  to  dance)  and  return  to  her  march." 

So  the  evenings  passed,  and  the  days,  in 
happy  fashion  for  a  little  while.  Then  Charlotte 
and  Anne  went  back  to  Miss  Wooler's,  and 
Emily,  too,  took  up  the  gauntlet  against  neces- 
sity. She  was  not  of  a  character  to  let  the 
distastefulness  of  any  duty  hinder  her  from 
undertaking  it.  She  vvas  very  stern  in  her  deal- 
ings with  herself,  though  tender  to  the  erring, 
and  anxious  to  bear  the  burdens  of  the  weak. 
She  allowed  no  one  but  herself  to  decide  what 
it  behoved  her  to  do.  She  could  not  see  Char- 
lotte labor,  and  not  work  herself.  At  home  she 
worked,  it  is  true,  harder  than  servants ;  but 
she  felt  it  right  not  only  to  work,  but  to  earn. 
So,  having  recovered  her  natural  strength,  she 
left  Haworth  in  September,  and  Charlotte  writes 
from  school  to  her  friend :   "  My  sister  Emily 


GOING   TO  SCHOOL.  8 1 

has  gone  into  a  situation  as  teacher  in  a  large 
school  near  Halifax.  I  have  had  one  letter  from 
her  since  her  departure  ;  it  gives  an  appalling 
account  of  her  duties  ;  hard  labor  from  six  in 
the  morning  to  eleven  at  night,  with  only  one 
half-hour  of  exercise  between.  This  is  slavery. 
I  fear  she  can  never  stand  it." 

She  stood  it,  however,  all  that  term  ;  came 
back  to  Haworth  for  a  brief  rest  at  Christmas, 
and  again  left  it  for  the  hated  life  she  led, 
drudging  among  strangers.  But  when  spring 
came  back,  with  its  feverish  weakness,  with  its 
beauty  and  memories,  to  that  stern  place  of 
exile,  she  failed.  Her  health  broke  down,  shat- 
tered by  long-resisted  homesickness.  Weary 
and  mortified  at  heart,  Emily  again  went  back 
to  seek  life  and  happiness  on  the  wild  moors 
of  Haworth. 


CHAPTER  VI. 


GIRLHOOD    AT    HAWORTH. 


The  next  two  years  passed  very  solitarily  for 
Emily  at  Haworth  ;  the  Brontes  were  too  poor 
for  all  to  stay  at  home,  and  since  it  was  defi- 
nitely settled  that  Emily  could  not  live  away, 
she  worked  hard  at  home  while  her  sisters  went 
out  in  the  world  to  gain  their  bread.  She  had 
no  friend  besides  her  sisters  ;  far-off  Anne  was 
her  only  confidante.  Outside  her  own  circle  the 
only  person  that  she  cared  to  meet  was  Char- 
lotte's friend  Ellen,  and,  of  course,  Ellen  did 
not  come  to  Haworth  while  Charlotte  was  away. 
Bran  well,  too,  was  absent.  His  first  engage- 
ment was  as  usher  in  a  school ;  but,  mortified 
by  the  boys'  sarcasms  on  his  red  hair  and 
"  downcast  smallness,"  he  speedily  threw  up  his 
situation  and  returned  to  Haworth  to  confide 
his  wounded  vanity  to  the  tender  mercies  of  the 
rough  and  valiant  Emily,  or  to  loaf  about  the 
village  seeking  readier  consolation. 

Then  he  went  as  private  tutor  to  a  family  in 
Broughton-in-Furness.     One  letter  of  his  thence 


GIRLHOOD  AT  HA  WORTH.  83 

despatched  to  some  congenial  spirit  in  Haworth, 
long  since  dead,  has  been  lent  to  me  by  the 
courtesy  of  Mr.  William  Wood,  one  of  the  last 
of  Branwell's  companions,  in  whose  possession 
the  torn,  faded  sheet  remains.  Much  of  it  is 
unreadable  from  accidental  rents  and  the  pur- 
posed excision  of  private  passages,  and  part  of 
that  which  can  be  read  cannot  be  quoted ;  such 
as  it  is,  the  letter  is  valuable  as  showing  what 
things  in  life  seemed  desirable  and  worthy  of 
attainment  to  this  much-hoped-in  brother  of  the 
austere  Emily,  the  courageous  Charlotte,  the 
pious  Anne. 

"Broughton-in-Furness,  March  15. 

"Old  Knave  of  Trumps, 

"  Don't  think  I  have  forgotten  you  though  I 
have  delayed  so  long  in  writing  to  you.  It  was 
ly  purpose  to  send  you  a  yarn  as  soon  as  I 
:ould  find  materials  to  spin  one  with.  And  it 
is  only  just  now  I  have  had  time  to  turn  myself 
round  and  know  where  I  am. 

"If  you  saw  me  now  you  would  not  know  me, 
and  you  would  laugh  to  hear  the  character  the 
)eople  give  me.  Oh,  the  falsehood  and  hypoc- 
risy of  this  world  !  I  am  fixed  in  a  little  town 
retired  by  the  seashore,  embowered  in  woody 
hills  that  rise  round  me,  huge,  rocky,  and  capped 
with  clouds.  My  employer  is  a  retired  county 
magistrate    and    large    landholder,   of    a    right 


84  EMILY  BRONTE. 

hearty,  generous  disposition.  His  wife  is  a 
quiet,  silent,  amiable  woman  ;  his  sons  are  two, 
fine,  spirited  lads.  My  landlord  is  a  respectable 
surgeon,  and  six  days  out  of  seven  as  drunk  as 
a  lord ;  his  wife  is  a  bustling,  chattering,  kind- 
hearted  soul;  his  daughter  —  oh!  death  and 
damnation  !  Well,  what  am  I  ?  that  is,  what  do 
they  think  I  am?  —  a  most  sober,  abstemious, 
patient,  mild-hearted,  virtuous,  gentlemanly  phi- 
losopher, the  picture  of  good  works,  the  treasure- 
house  of  righteous  thought.  Cards  are  shuffled 
under  the  table-cloth,  glasses  are  thrust  into  the 
cupboard,  if  I  enter  the  room.  I  take  neither 
spirit,  wine,  nor  malt  liquors.  I  dress  in  black, 
and  smile  like  a  saint  or  martyr.  Every  lady 
says,  'What  a  good  young  gentleman  is  the 
Postlethwaites'  tutor.'  This  is  fact,  as  I  am  a 
living  soul,  and  right  comfortably  do  I  laugh  at 
them  ;  but  in  this  humor  do  I  mean  them  to  con- 
tinue. I  took  a  half-year's  farewell  of  old  friend 
whiskey  at  Kendal  the  night  after  I  [left].  There 
was  a  party  of  gentlemen  at  the  Royal  Hotel ;  I 
joined  them  and  ordered  in  supper  and  '  toddy 
as  hot  as  Hell.'  They  thought  I  was  a  physi- 
cian, and  put  me  into  the  chair.  I  gave  them 
some  toasts  of  the  stiffest  sort  .  .  .  washing 
them  down  at  the  same  time  till  the  room  spun 
round  and  the  candles  danced  in  their  eyes. 
One  was  a  respectable  old  gentleman  with  pow- 


GIRLHOOD  AT  HA  WORTH.  85 

dered  head,  rosy  cheeks,  fat  paunch,  and  ringed 
fingers  ...  he  led  off  with  a  speech,  and  in 
two  minutes,  in  the  very  middle  of  a  grand  sen- 
tence, stopped,  wagged  his  head,  looked  wildly 
round,  stammered,  coughed,  stopped  again,  called 
for  his  slippers,  and  so  the  waiter  helped  him 
to  bed.  Next  a  tall  Irish  squire  and  a  native 
of  the  land  of  Israel  began  to  quarrel  about  their 
countries,  and  in  the  warmth  of  argument  dis- 
charged their  glasses  each  at  his  neighbor's 
throat,  instead  of  his  own.  I  recommended 
blisters,  bleeding  [here  illegible],  so  I  flung  my 
tumbler  on  the  floor,  too,  and  swore  I'd  join 
old  Ireland.  A  regular  rumpus  ensued,  but  we 
were  tamed  at  last,  and  I  found  myself  in  bed 
next  morning,  with  a  bottle  of  porter,  a  glass, 
and  corkscrew  beside  me.  Since  then  I  have 
not  tasted  anything  stronger  than  milk  and 
water,  nor,  I  hope,  shall  I  till  I  return  at  mid- 
summer, when  we  will  see  about  it.  I  am  get- 
ting as  fat  as  Prince  Win  at  Springhead  and  as 
godly  as  his  friend  Parson  Winterbottom.  My 
hand  shakes  no  longer :  I  write  to  the  bankers 
at  Ulverston  with  Mr.  Postlethwaite,  and  sit 
drinking  tea  and  talking  slander  with  old  ladies. 
As  to  the  young  ones,  I  have  one  sitting  by  me 
just  now,  fair-faced,  blue-eyed,  dark-haired,  sweet 
eighteen.  She  little  thinks  the  Devil  is  as  near 
her.    I  was  delighted  to  see  thy  note,  old  Squire, 


86  EMILY  BRONTE. 

but  don't  understand  one  sentence  —  perhaps 
you  will  know  what  I  mean.  You  tell  me  like- 
wise about  your  keeping  two  hens  and  a  cock, 
as  if  I  did  not  know  you  kept  a  cock  long  since, 
and  a  game  cock  too,  by  Jupiter!  How  are  all 
about  you  ?  I  long  .  .  .  [all  torn  next]  every- 
thing about  Haworth  folk.  Does  little  Nosey 
think  I  have  forgotten  him.  No,  by  Jupiter ! 
nor  is  Alick  either.  I'll  send  him  a  remem- 
brance one  of  these  days.  But  I  must  talk  to 
some  one  prettier;  so  good  night,  old  boy. 
Write  directly,  and  believe  me  to  be  thine, 

"The  Philosopher." 

Branwell's  boasted  reformation  was  not  kept 
up  for  long.  Soon  he  came  back  as  heartless, 
as  affectionate,  as  vain,  as  unprincipled  as  ever, 
to  laugh  and  loiter  about  the  steep  street  of 
Haworth.  Then  he  went  to  Bradford  as  a  por- 
trait-painter, and  —  so  impressive  is  audacity  — 
actually  succeeded  for  some  months  in  gaining 
a  living  there,  although  his  education  was  of  the 
slenderest,  and,  judging  from  the  specimens  still 
treasured  in  Haworth,  his  natural  talent  on  a 
level  with  that  of  the  average  new  student  in 
any  school  of  art.  His  tawny  mane,  his  pose 
of  untaught  genius,  his  verses  in  the  poet's 
corner  of  the  paper,  could  not  forever  keep  afloat 
this  untaught  and  thriftless  portrait-painter  of 


GIRLHOOD  AT  HAWORTH.  87 

twenty.  Soon  there  came  an  end  to  his  paint- 
ing there.  He  disappeared  from  Bradford  sud- 
denly, heavily  in  debt,  and  was  lost  to  sight, 
until  unnerved,  a  drunkard,  and  an  opium-eater, 
he  came  back  to  home  and  Emily  at  Haworth. 

Meanwhile  impetuous  Charlotte  was  growing 
nervous  and  weak,  gentle  Anne  consumptive 
and  dejected,  in  their  work  away  from  home ; 
and  Emily  was  toiling  from  dawn  till  dusk  with 
her  old  servant  Tabby  for  the  old  aunt  who 
never  cared  for  her,  and  the  old  father  always 
courteous  and  distant. 

They  knew  the  face  of  necessity  more  nearly 
than  any  friend's,  those  Bronte  girls,  and  the 
pinch  of  poverty  was  for  their  own  foot ;  there- 
fore were  they  always  considerate  to  any  that 
fell  into  the  same  plight.  During  the  Christmas 
holidays  of  1837,  old  Tabby  fell  on  the  steep  and 
slippery  street  and  broke  her  leg.  She  was 
already  nearly  seventy,  and  could  do  little  work  ; 
now  her  accident  laid  her  completely  aside,  leav- 
ing Emily,  Charlotte,  and  Anne  to  spend  their 
Christmas  holidays  in  doing  the  housework  and 
nursing  the  invalid.  Miss  Branwell,  anxious  to 
spare  the  girls'  hands  and  her  brother-in-law's 
pocket,  insisted  that  Tabby  should  be  sent  to 
her  sister's  house  to  be  nursed  and  another  ser- 
vant engaged  for  the  Parsonage.  Tabby,  she 
represented,  was  fairly  well  off,  her  sister  in  com- 


88  EMILY  BRONTE. 

fortable  circumstances ;  the  Parsonage  kitchen 
might  supply  her  with  broths  and  jellies  in 
plenty,  but  why  waste  the  girls'  leisure  and 
scanty  patrimony  on  an  old  servant  competent 
to  keep  herself.  Mr.  Bronte  was  finally  per- 
suaded, and  his  decision  made  known.  But  the 
girls  were  not  persuaded.  Tabby,  so  they  averred, 
was  one  of  the  family,  and  they  refused  to  aban- 
don her  in  sickness.  They  did  not  say  much, 
but  they  did  more  than  say  —  they  starved. 
When  the  tea  was  served,  the  three  sat  silent, 
fasting.  -Next  morning  found  their  will  yet 
stronger  than  their  hunger —  no  breakfast.  They 
did  the  day's  work,  and  dinner  came.  Still  they 
held  out,  wan  and  sunk.  Then  the  superiors 
gave  in. 

The  girls  gained  their  victory  —  no  stubborn 
freak,  but  the  right  to  make  a  generous  sacrifice, 
and  to  bear  an  honorable  burden. 

That  Christmas,  of  course,  there  could  be  no 
visiting;  nor  the  next.  Tabby  was  slow  in  get- 
ting well ;  but  she  did  not  outvveary  the  patience 
of  her  friends. 

Two  years  later,  Charlotte  writes  to  her  old 
schoolfellow  : 

"December  21,  1839. 

"We  are  at  present,  and  have  been  during  the 
last  month,  rather  busy,  as  for  that  space  of 
time  we  have  been  without  a  servant,  except  a 


GIRLHOOD  AT  HA  WORTH. 


89 


little  girl  to  run  errands.  Poor  Tabby  became 
so  lame  that  she  was  at  length  obliged  to  leave 
us.  She  is  residing  with  her  sister,  in  a  little 
house  of  her  own,  which  she  bought  with  her 
own  savings  a  year  or  two  since.  She  is  very 
comfortable,  and  wants  nothing.  As  she  is 
near  we  see  her  very  often.  In  the  meantime, 
Emily  and  I  are  sufficiently  busy,  as  you  may 
suppose  ;  I  manage  the  ironing  and  keep  the 
rooms  clean  ;  Emily  does  the  baking  and  attends 
to  the  kitchen.  We  are  such  odd  animals  that 
we  prefer  this  mode  of  contrivance  to  having  a 
new  face  among  us.  Besides,  we  do  not  despair 
of  Tabby's  return,  and  she  shall  not  be  sup- 
planted by  a  stranger  in  her  absence.  I  excited 
aunt's  wrath  very  much  by  burning  the  clothes 
the  first  time  I  attempted  to  iron  ;  but  I  do  bet-" 
ter  now.  Human  feelings  are  queer  things  ;  I 
am  much  happier  blackleading  the  stoves,  mak- 
ing the  beds,  and  sweeping  the  floors  at  home 
than  I  should  be  living  like  a  fine  lady  anywhere 
else."  * 

The  year  1840  found  Emily,  Branwell,  and 
Charlotte  all  at  home  together.  Unnerved  and 
dissipated  as  he  was,  Branwell  was  still  a  wel- 
come presence  ;  his  gay  talk  still  awakened  glad 
promises  in  the  ambitious  and  loving  household 
1  Mrs.  Gaskell. 


90 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


which  hoped  all  things  from  him.  His  mistakes 
and  faults  they  pardoned  ;  thinking,  poor  souls, 
that  the  strong  passions  which  led  him  astray 
betokened  a  strong  character  and  not  a  power- 
less will. 

It  was  still  to  Branwell  that  they  looked  for 
the  fame  of  the  family.  Their  poems,  their 
stories,  were  to  these  girls  but  a  legitimate 
means  of  amusement  and  relief.  The  serious 
business  of  their  life  was  to  teach,  to  cook,  to 
clean  ;  to  earn  or  save  the  mere  expense  of  their 
existence.  No  dream  of  literary  fame  gave  a 
purpose  to  the  quiet  days  of  Emily  Bronte. 
Charlotte  and  Branwell,  more  impulsive,  more 
ambitious,  had  sent  their  work  to  Southey,  to 
Coleridge,  to  Wordsworth,  in  vain,  pathetic  hope 
of  encouragement  or  recognition.  Not  so  the 
sterner  Emily,  to  whom  expression  was  at  once 
a  necessity  and  a  regret.  Emily's  brain,  Emily's 
locked  desk,  these  and  nothing  else  knew  the 
degree  of  her  passion,  her  genius,  her  power. 
And  yet  acknowledged  power  would  have  been 
sweet  to  that  dominant  spirit. 

Meanwhile  the  immediate  difficulty  was  to 
earn  a  living.  Even  those  patient  and  cour- 
ageous girls  could  not  accept  the  thought  of  a 
whole  lifetime  spent  in  dreary  governessing  by 
Charlotte  and  Anne,  in  solitary  drudgery  by 
homekeeping  Emily.     One  way  out  of  this  hate- 


GIRLHOOD  AT  HA  WORTH.  gi 

ful  vista  seemed  not  impossible  of  attainment. 
For  years  it  was  the  wildest  hope,  the  cherished 
dream,  of  the  author  of  '  Wuthering  Heights ' 
and  the  author  of  '  Villette.'  And  what  was  this 
dear  and  daring  ambition  ?  —  to  keep  a  ladies' 
school  at  Haworth. 

Far  enough  off,  difficult  to  reach,  it  looked  to 
them,  this  paltry  common-place  ideal  of  theirs. 
For  the  house  with  its  four  bedrooms  would  have 
to  be  enlarged  ;  for  the  girls'  education,  with  its 
Anglo-French  and  stumbling  music,  would  have 
to  be  adorned  by  the  requisite  accomplishments, 
"his  would  take  time;  time  and  money,  —  two 
luxuries  most  hard  to  get  for  the  Vicar  of  Ha- 
rorth's  harassed  daughters.  They  would  sigh, 
and  suddenly  stop  in  their  making  of  plans 
and  drawing  up  of  circulars.  It  seemed  so  dif- 
ficult. 

One  person,  indeed,  might  help  them.  Miss 
Branwell  had  saved  out  of  her  annuity  of  ^50  a 
year.  She  had  a  certain  sum  ;  small  enough, 
but  to  Charlotte  and  Emily  it  seemed  as  potent 
as  the  fairy's  wand.  The  question  was,  would 
she  risk  it  ? 

It  seemed  not.  The  old  lady  had  always 
chiefly  meant  her  savings  for  the  dear  prodigal 
who  bore  her  name,  and  Emily  and  Charlotte 
were  not  her  favorites.  The  girls  indeed  only 
asked   for  a  loan,  but   she   doubted,  hesitated, 


92 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


doubted  again.  They  were  too  proud  to  take 
an  advantage  so  grudgingly  proffered  ;  and  while 
their  talk  was  still  of  what  means  they  might 
employ,  while  they  still  painfully  toiled  through 
improper  French  novels  as  "  the  best  substitute 
for  French  conversation,"  they  gave  up  the  dream 
for  the  present,  and  Charlotte  again  looked  out 
for  a  situation.  Nearly  a  year  elapsed  before 
she  found  it  —  a  happy  year,  full  of  plans  and 
talks  with  Emily,  and  free  from  any  more  press- 
ing anxiety  than  Anne's  delicate  health  always 
gave  her  sisters.  Bran  well  was  away  and  doing 
well  as  station-master  at  Luddendenfoot,  "set 
off  to  seek  his  fortune  in  the  wild,  wandering, 
adventurous,  romantic,  knight-errant-like  capa- 
city of  clerk  on  the  Leeds  and  Manchester  Rail- 
way." Ellen  came  to  stay  at  Haworth  in  the 
summer  ;  it  was  quite  sociable  and  lively  now  in 
the  gray  house  on  the  moors  ;  for,  compelled  by 
failing  health,  Mr.  Bronte  had  engaged  the  help 
of  a  curate,  and  the  Haworth  curate  brought  his 
clerical  friends  about  the  house,  to  the  great 
disgust  of  Emily,  and  the  half-sentimental  flut- 
tering of  pensive  Anne,  which  laid  on  Charlotte 
the  responsibility  of  talking  for  all  three. 

In  the  holidays  when  Anne  was  at  home  all 
the  old  glee  and  enjoyment  of  life  returned. 
There  was,  moreover,  the  curate,  "  bonnie,  pleas- 
ant, light-hearted,  good-tempered,  generous,  care- 


GIRLHOOD  AT  HA  WORTH. 


93 


less,  crafty,  fickle,  and  unclerical,"  to  add  piquancy 
to  the  situation.  "  He  sits  opposite  to  Anne  at 
church,  sighing  softly,  and  looking  out  of  the 
corners  of  his  eyes  —  and  she  is  so  quiet,  her 
look  so  downcast  ;  they  are  a  picture,"  says 
merry  Charlotte.  This  first  curate  at  Haworth 
was  exempted  from  Emily's  liberal  scorn ;  he 
was  a  favorite  at  the  vicarage,  a  clever,  bright- 
spirited,  and  handsome  youth,  greatly  in  Miss 
Branwell's  good  graces.  He  would  tease  and 
flatter  the  old  lady  with  such  graciousness  as" 
made  him  ever  sure  of  a  welcome  ;  so  that  his 
daily  visits  to  Mr.  Bronte's  study  were  nearly 
always  followed  up  by  a  call  in  the  opposite  par- 
lor, when  Miss  Branwell  would  frequently  leave 
her  up-stairs  retreat  and  join  in  the  lively  chat- 
ter. She  always  presided  at  the  tea-table,  at 
which  the  curate  was  a  frequent  guest,  and  her 
nieces  would  be  kept  well  amused  all  through 
the  tea-hour  by  the  curate's  piquant  sallies,  baf- 
fling the  old  lady  in  her  little  schemes  of  control 
over  the  three  high-spirited  girls.  None  enjoyed 
the  fun  more  than  quiet  Emily,  always  present 
and  amused,  "her  countenance  glimmering  as  it 
always  did  when  she  enjoyed  herself,"  Miss  Ellen 
Nussey  tells  me.  Many  happy  legends,  too  fa- 
miliar to  be  quoted  here,  record  the  light  heart 
and  gay  spirit  that  Emily  bore  in  those  untrou- 
bled days.     Foolish,  pretty  little  stories  of  her 


94 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


dauntless  protection  of  the  other  girls  from  too 
pressing  suitors.  Never  was  duenna  so  gallant, 
so  gay,  and  so  inevitable.  In  compliment  to  the 
excellence  of  her  swashing  and  martial  outside 
on  such  occasions,  the  little  household  dubbed 
her  "  The  Major,"  a  name  that  stuck  to  her  in 
days  when  the  dash  and  gayety  of  her  soldiery 
bearing  was  sadly  sobered  down,  and  only  the 
courage  and  dauntless  heart  remained. 

But  in  these  early  days  of  1841,  Emily  was  as 
happy  as  other  healthy  country  girls  in  a  con- 
genial home.  "  She  did  what  we  did,"  says  Miss 
Nussey,  "  and  never  absented  herself  when  she 
could  avoid  it  —  life  at  this  period  must  have 
been  sweet  and  pleasant  to  her."  An  equal, 
unchequered  life,  in  which  trifles  seemed  of 
great  importance.  We  hear  of  the  little  joys 
and  adventures  of  those  days,  so  faithfully  and 
long  remembered,  with  a  pathetic  pleasurable- 
ness.  So  slight  they  are,  and  all  their  color 
gone,  like  pressed  roses,  though  a  faint  sweet- 
ness yet  remains.  The  disasters  when  Miss 
Branwell  was  cross  and  in  no  humor  to  receive 
her  guests  ;  the  long-expected  excitement  of  a 
walk  over  the  moors  to  Keighley  where  the 
curate  was  to  give  a  lecture,  the  alarm  and 
flurry  when  the  curate,  finding  none  of  the  four 
girls  had  ever  received  a  valentine,  proposed  to 
send  one  to  each  on  the  next  Valentine's  Day. 


GIRLHOOD  AT  HA  WORTH. 


95 


"  No,  no,  the  elders  would  never  allow  it,  and 
yet  it  would  certainly  be  an  event  to  receive  a 
valentine  ;  still,  there  would  be  such  a  lecture 
from  Miss  Branwell."  "  Oh  no,"  he  said,  "  I 
shall  post  them  at  Bradford."  And  to  Bradford 
he  walked,  ten  miles  and  back  again,  so  that  on 
the  eventful  14th  of  February  the  anxiously  ex- 
pected postman  brought  four  valentines,  all  on 
delicately  tinted  paper,  all  enhanced  by  a  verse 
of  original  poetry,  touching  on  some  pleasant 
characteristic  in  each  recipient.  What  merri- 
ment and  comparing  of  notes !  What  pleased 
feigning  of  indignation  !  The  girls  determined 
to  reward  him  with  a  Rowland  for  his  Oliver, 
and  Charlotte  wrote  some  rhymes  full  of  fun  and 
raillery  which  all  the  girls  signed  —  Emily  enter- 
ing into  all  this  with  much  spirit  and  amusement 
—  and  finally  despatched  in  mystery  and  secret 
glee. 

At  last  this  pleasant  fooling  came  to  an  end. 
Charlotte  advertised  for  a  place,  and  found  it. 
While  she  was  away  she  had  a  letter  from  Miss 
Wooler,  offering  Charlotte  the  good-will  of  her 
school  at  Dewsbury  Moor.  It  was  a  chance 
not  to  be  lost,  although  what  inducement  Emily 
and  Charlotte  could  offer  to  their  pupils  it  is  not 
easy  to  imagine.  But  it  was  above  all  things 
necessary  to  make  a  home  where  delicate  Anne 
might  be  sheltered,  where  homesick  Emily  could 


96  EMILY  BRONTE. 

be  happy,  where  Charlotte  could  have  time  to 
write,  where  all  might  live  and  work  together. 
Miss  Wooler's  offer  was  immediately  accepted. 
Miss  Branwell  was  induced  to  lend  the  girls 
^100.  No  answer  came  from  Miss  Wooler. 
Then  ambitious  Charlotte,  from  her  situation 
away,  wrote  to  Miss  Branwell  at  Haworth  : l 

"  September  29,  1S41. 

"  Dear  Aunt, 

"  I  have  heard  nothing  of  Miss  Wooler  yet 
since  I  wrote  to  her,  intimating  that  I  would 
accept  her  offer.  I  cannot  conjecture  the  rea- 
son of  this  long  silence,  unless  some  unforeseen 
impediment  has  occurred  in  concluding  the  bar- 
gain.    Meantime  a  plan  has  been  suggested  and 

approved  by  Mr.  and  Mrs. and  others  which 

I  wish  now  to  impart  to  you.  My  friends  recom- 
mend, if  I  desire  to  secure  permanent  success, 
to  delay  commencing  the  school  for  six  months 
longer,  and  by  all  means  to  contrive,  by  hook  or 
by  crook,  to  spend  the  intervening  time  in  some 
school  on  the  Continent.  They  say  schools  in 
England  are  so  numerous,  competition  so  great, 
that  without  some  such  step  towards  attaining 
superiority,  we  shall  probably  have  a  very  hard 
struggle  and  may  fail  in  the  end.  They  say, 
moreover,   that  the  loan   of  £,\Q>o,   which    you 

1  Mrs.  Gaskell. 


;  GIRLHOOD   A  T  HA  WORTH.  97 

'have  been  so  kind  as  to  offer  us,  will  perhaps 
1  not  be  all  required  now,  as  Miss  Wooler  will 
■lend  us  the  furniture;  and  that,  if  the  specula- 
tion is  intended  to  be  a  good  and  successful  one, 
half  the  sum,  at  least,  ought  to  be  laid  out  in  the 
manner  I  have  mentioned,  thereby  insuring  a 
more  speedy  repayment  both  of  interest  and 
principal. 

"  I  would  not  go  to  France  or  to  Paris.  I 
would  go  to  Brussels,  in  Belgium.  The  cost  of 
the  journey  there,  at  the  dearest  rate  of  travel- 
ling, would  be  £,*,  ;  living  is  there  little  more 
than  half  as  dear  as  it  is  in  England,  and  the 
facilities  for  education  are  equal  or  superior  to 
any  place  in  Europe.  In  half  a  year  I  could 
acquire  a  thorough  familiarity  with  French.  I 
could  improve  greatly  in  Italian,  and  even  get 
a  dash  at  German ;  i.  e.  providing  my  health  con- 
tinued as  good  as  it  is  now.  .  .  . 

"  These  are  advantages  which  would  turn  to 
real  account  when  we  actually  commenced  a 
school  ;  and,  if  Emily  could  share  them  with 
me,  we  could  take  a  footing  in  the  world  after- 
wards which  we  never  can  do  now.  I  say  Emily 
instead  of  Anne  ;  for  Anne  might  take  her  turn 
at  some  future  period,  if  our  school  answered. 
I  feel  certain,  while  I  am  writing,  that  you  will 
see  the  propriety  of  what  I  say.  You  always 
like  to  use  your  money  to  the  best  advantage. 

7 


98 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


You  are  not  fond  of  making  shabby  purchases  . 
when  you  do  confer  a  favor  it  is  often  clone  in 
style  ;  and  depend  upon  it,  ^50  or  ^IOO,  thus  laid 
out,  would  be  well  employed.  Of  course,  I  know 
no  other  friend  in  the  world  to  whom  I  could 
apply  on  this  subject  besides  yourself.  I  feel  an 
absolute  conviction  that  if  this  advantage  were 
allowed  us,  it  would  be  the  making  of  us  for  life. 
Papa  will  perhaps  think  it  a  wild  and  ambitious 
scheme  ;  but  who  ever  rose  in  the  world  without 
ambition  ?  When  he  left  Ireland  to  go  to  Cam- 
bridge University  he  was  as  ambitious  as  I  am 
now." 

That  was  true.  It  must  have  struck  a  vibrant 
chord  in  the  old  man's  breast.  Absorbed  in 
parish  gossip  and  his  'Cottage  Poems,'  caring 
no  longer  for  the  world  but  only  for  newspaper 
reports  of  it,  actively  idle,  living  a  resultless  life 
of  ascetic  self-indulgence,  the  Vicar  of  Haworth 
was  very  proud  of  his  energetic  past.  He  had 
always  held  it  up  to  his  children  as  a  model  for 
them  to  copy.  Charlotte's  appeal  would  certainly 
secure  her  father  as  an  ally  to  her  cause.  Miss 
Branwell,  on  the  other  hand,  would  not  wish  for 
displays  of  ambition  in  her  already  too  irrepres- 
sible nieces.  But  she  was  getting  old  ;  it  would 
be  a  comfort  to  her,  after  all,  to  see  them  settled, 
and  prosperously  settled  through  her  generosity. 


GIRLHOOD  AT  HA  WORTH. 


99 


"  I  look  to  you,  Aunt,  to  help  us.  I  think  you 
will  not  refuse,"  Charlotte  had  said.  How,  in- 
deed, could  Miss  Branwell,  living  in  their  home, 
be  happy,  and  refuse  ? 

Yet  many  discussions  went  on  before  anxious 
Charlotte  got  the  answer.  Emily,  whom  it  con- 
cerned as  nearly,  must  have  listened  waiting  in 
a  strange  perturbation  of  hope  and  fear.  To 
leave  home  —  she  knew  well  what  it  meant. 
Since  she  was  six  years  old  she  had  never  left 
Yorkshire  ;  but  those  months  of  wearying  home- 
sickness at  Roe  Head,  at  Halifax,  must  have 
most  painfully  rushed  back  upon  her  memory. 
Haworth  was  health,  content,  the  very  possibility 
of  existence  to  this  girl.  To  leave  Haworth  for 
a  strange  town  beyond  the  seas,  to  see  strange 
faces  all  round,  to  hear  and  speak  a  strange  lan- 
guage, Charlotte's  welcome  prospect  of  adventure 
must  have  taken  a  nightmare  shape  to  Emily. 
And  for  this  she  must  hope ;  this  she  must  de- 
sire, plead  for  if  necessary,  and  at  least  uphold. 
For  Charlotte  said  the  thing  was  essential  to 
their  future  ;  and  in  all  details  of  management, 
Charlotte's  word  ■  was  law  to  her  sisters.  Even 
Emily,  the  independent,  indomitable  Emily,  so 
resolute  in  keeping  to  any  chosen  path,  looked 
to  Charlotte  to  choose  the  way  in  practical 
affairs. 

At  length  consent  was  secured,  written,  and 


IOO  EMILY  BRONTE. 

despatched.  Gleeful  Charlotte  gave  notice  to  ; 
her  employers  and  soon  set  out  for  home.  There  '. 
was  much  to  be  done.  "  Letters  to  write  to 
Brussels,  to  Lille,  and  to  London,  lots  of  work  to 
be  done,  besides  clothes  to  repair."  It  was  de- 
cided that  the  sisters  should  give  up  their  chance 
of  the  school  at  Dewsbury  Moor,  since  the  site 
was  low  and  damp,  and  had  not  suited  Anne. 
On  their  return  from  Brussels  they  were  to  set 
up  a  school  in  some  healthy  seaside  place  in  the 
East  Riding.  Burlington  was  the  place  where 
their  fancy  chiefly  dwelt.  To  this  beautiful  and 
healthy  spot,  fronting  the  sea,  eager  pupils  would 
flock  for  the  benefit  of  instruction  by  three  daugh- 
ters of  a  clergyman,  "  educated  abroad  "  (for  six 
months),  speaking  thorough  French,  improved 
Italian,  and  a  dash  of  German.  A  scintillating 
programme  of  accomplishment  danced  before 
their  eyes. 

There  were,  however,  many  practical  difficul- 
ties to  be  vanquished  first.  The  very  initial 
step,  the  choice  of  a  school,  was  hard  to  take. 
Charlotte  writes  to  Ellen  : 

"January  20,  1842. 

"We  expect  to  leave  England  in  about  three 
weeks,  but  we  are  not  yet  certain  as  to  the  day, 
as  it  will  depend  on  the  convenience  of  a  French 
lady  now  in  London,  Madame  Marzials,  under 


GIRLHOOD  AT  HA  WORTH.  IOi 

whose  escort  we  are  to  sail.  Our  place  of  des- 
tination is  changed.  Papa  received  an  unfavor- 
able account  from  Mr.  or  rather  from  Mrs.  Jenkins 
of  the  French  schools  in  Bruxelles,  representing 
them  as  of  an  inferior  caste  in  many  respects. 
On  further  inquiry  an  institution  at  Lille  in  the 
North  of  France  was  highly  recommended  by 
Baptist  Noel  and  other  clergymen,  and  to  that 
place  it  is  decided  that  we  are  to  go.  The  terms 
are  £,^0  a  year  for  each  pupil  for  board  and 
French  alone ;  but  a  separate  room  will  be 
allowed  for  this  sum  ;  without  this  indulgence 
they  are  something  lower.  I  considered  it  kind 
in  aunt  to  consent  to  an  extra  sum  for  a  separate 
room.  We  shall  find  it  a  great  privilege  in  many 
ways.  I  regret  the  change  from  Bruxelles  to 
Lille  on  many  accounts." 

For  Charlotte  to  regret  the  change  was  for  an 
improvement  to  be  discovered.  She  had  set  her 
heart  on  going  to  Brussels ;  Mrs.  Jenkins  re- 
doubled her  efforts  and  at  length  discovered  the 
Pensionnat  of  Madame  Heger  in  the  Rue  d'lsa- 
belle. 

Thither,  as  all  the  world  is  aware,  Charlotte 
and  Emily  Bronte,  both  of  age,  went  to  school. 

"  We  shall  leave  England  in  about  three 
weeks."  The  words  had  a  ring  of  happy  dar- 
ing in  Charlotte's  ears.     Since  at  six  years  of 


102  EMILY  BRONTE. 

age  she  had  set  out  alone  to  discover  the  Golden 
City,  romance,  discovery,  adventure,  were  sweet 
promises  to  her.  She  had  often  wished  to  see 
the  world  ;  now  she  will  see  it.  She  had  thirsted 
for  knowledge  ;  here  is  the  source.  She  longed 
to  add  new  notes  to  that  gamut  of  human  char- 
acter which  she  could  play  with  so  profound  a 
science ;  she  shall  make  a  masterpiece  out  of 
her  acquisitions.  At  this  time  her  letters  are 
full  of  busy  gayety,  giving  accounts  of  her  work, 
making  plans,  making  fun.  As  happy  and  hope- 
ful a  young  woman  as  any  that  dwells  in  Haworth 
parish. 

Emily  is  different.  It  is  she  who  imagined 
the  girl  in  heaven  who  broke  her  heart  with 
weeping  for  earth,  till  the  angels  cast  her  out  in 
anger,  and  flung  her  into  the  middle  of  the  heath, 
to  wake  there  sobbing  for  joy.  She  did  not  care 
to  know  fresh  people ;  she  hates  strangers  ;  to 
walk  with  her  bulldog,  Keeper,  over  the  moors 
is  her  best  adventure.  To  learn  new  things  is 
very  well,  but  she  prizes  above  everything  origi- 
nality and  the  wild  provincial  flavor  of  her  home. 
What  she  strongly,  deeply  loves  is  her  moorland 
home,  her  own  people,  the  creatures  on  the  heath, 
the  dogs  who  always  feed  from  her  hands,  the 
flowers  in  the  bleak  garden  that  only  grow  at  all 
because  of  the  infinite  care  she  lavishes  upon 
them.     The  stunted  thorn  under  which  she  sits 


GIRLHOOD  AT  HA  WORTH. 


103 


to  write  her  poems,  is  more  beautiful  to  her  than 
the  cedars  of  Lebanon.  To  each  and  all  of  these 
she  must  now  bid  farewell.  It  is  in  a  different 
tone  that  she  says  in  her  adieus,  "  We  shall  leave 
England  in  about  three  weeks." 


CHAPTER  VII. 

IN    THE    RUE    D'iSAEELLE. 

The  Rue  dTsabelle  had  a  character  of  its  own. 
It  lies  below  your  feet  as  you  stand  in  the  Rue 
Royale,  near  the  statue  of  General  Beliard.  Four 
flights  of  steps  lead  down  to  the  street,  half  gar- 
den, half  old  houses,  with  at  one  end  a  large 
square  mansion,  owning  the  garden  that  runs 
behind  it  and  to  the  right  of  it.  The  house  is 
old  ;  a  Latin  inscription  shows  it  to  have  been 
given  to  the  great  Guild  of  Cross-bowmen  by 
Queen  Isabelle  in  the  early  years  of  the  seven- 
teenth century.  The  garden  is  older ;  long  be- 
fore the  Guild  of  the  Cross-bowmen  of  the  Great 
Oath,  in  deference  to  the  wish  of  Queen  Isabelle, 
permitted  the  street  to  be  made  through  it,  the 
garden  had  been  their  exercising  place.  There 
Isabelle  herself,  a  member  of  their  order,  had 
shot  down  the  bird.  But  the  garden  had  a  yet 
more  ancient  past  ;  when  apple-trees,  pear-trees, 
and  alleys  of  Bruges  cherries,  when  plots  of 
marjoram  and  mint,  of  thyme  and  sweet-basil, 
filled  the  orchard  and  herbary  of  the  Hospital 


IN  THE  RUE  HISADELLE. 


105 


of  the  Poor.  And  the  garden  itself,  before  trees 
or  flowers  were  planted,  had  resounded  with  the 
yelp  of  the  Duke's  hounds,  when,  in  the  thir- 
teenth century,  it  had  been  the  Fosse-aux-chiens. 
This  historic  garden,  this  mansion,  built  by  a 
queen  for  a  great  order,  belonged  in  1842  to 
Monsieur  and  Madame  Heger,  and  was  a  famous 
Pensionnat  de  Demoiselles. 

There  the  Vicar  of  Haworth  brought  his  two 
daughters  one  February  day,  spent  one  night  in 
Brussels,  and  went  straight  back  to  his  old  house 
on  the  moors,  so  modern  in  comparison  with  the 
mansion  in  Rue  dTsabelle.  A  change,  indeed, 
for  Emily  and  Charlotte.  Even  now,  Brussels 
(the  headquarters  of  Catholicism  far  more  than 
modern  Rome)  has  a  taste  for  pageantry  that 
recalls  mediasval  days.  The  streets  decked  with 
boughs  and  strewn  with  flowers,  through  which 
pass  slowly  the  processions  of  the  Church,  white- 
clad  children,  boys  like  angels  scattering  roses, 
standard-bearers  with  emblazoned  banners.  Sur- 
pliced  choristers  singing  Latin  praises,  acolytes 
in  scarlet  swinging  censers,  reliquaries  and  im- 
ages, before  which  the  people  fall  down  in  prayer  ; 
all  this  to-day  is  no  uncommon  sight  in  Brussels, 
and  must  have  been  yet  more  frequent  in  1842. 

The  flower-market  out  of  doors,  with  clove- 
pinks,  tall  Mary-lilies,  and  delicate  roses  d' amour, 
filling  the  quaint  mediaeval   square  before  the 


106  EMILY  BROATE. 

beautiful  old  facade  of  the  Hotel  de  Ville.  Ste.- 
Gudule,  with  its  spires  and  arches  ;  the  Mon- 
tagne  de  la  Cour  (almost  as  steep  as  Haworth 
street),  its  windows  ablaze  at  night  with  jewels  ; 
the  little,  lovely  park,  its  great  elms  just  coming 
into  leaf,  its  statues  just  bursting  from  their 
winter  sheaths  of  straw  ;  the  galleries  of  ancient 
pictures,  their  walls  a  sober  glory  of  colors,  blues, 
deep  as  a  summer  night,  rich  reds,  brown  golds, 
most  vivid  greens. 

All  this  should  have  made  an  impression  on 
the  two  home-keeping  girls  from  Yorkshire ; 
and  Charlotte,  indeed,  perceived  something  of 
its  beauty  and  strangeness.  But  Emily,  from 
a  bitter  sense  of  exile,  from  a  natural  narrowness 
of  spirit,  rebelled  against  it  all  as  an  insult  to 
the  memory  of  her  home  —  she  longed,  hope- 
lessly, uselessly,  for  Haworth.  The  two  Brontes 
were  very  different  to  the  Belgian  schoolgirls  in 
Madame  Heger's  Pensionnat.  They  were,  for 
one  thing,  ridiculously  old  to  be  at  school  — 
twenty-four  and  twenty-six  —  and  they  seemed 
to  feel  their  position  ;  their  speech  was  strained 
and  odd;  all  the  "sceptical,  wicked,  immoral 
French  novels,  over  forty  of  them,  the  best  sub- 
stitute for  French  conversation  to  be  met  with," 
which  the  girls  had  toiled  through  with  so  much 
singleness  of  spirit,  had  not  cured  the  broadness 
of  their  accent  nor  the  artificial  idioms  of  their 


IN  THE  RUE  DTSABELLE. 


107 


Yorkshire  French.  Monsieur  Heger,  indeed,  con- 
sidered that  they  knew  no  French  at  all.  Their 
manners,  even  among  English  people,  were  stiff 
and  prim  ;  the  hearty,  vulgar,  genial  expansion 
of  their  Belgian  schoolfellows  must  have  made 
them  seem  as  lifeless  as  marionettes.  Their 
dress —  Haworth  had  permitted  itself  to  wonder 
at  the  uncouthness  of  those  amazing  leg-of- 
mutton  sleeves  (Emily's  pet  whim  in  and  out 
of  fashion),  at  the  ill-cut  lankness  of  those  skirts, 
clumsy  enough  on /round  little  Charlotte,  but  a 
very  caricature  of  mediaevalism  on  Emily's  tall, 
thin,  slender  figure.  They  knew  they  were  not 
in  their  element,  and  kept  close  together,  rarely 
speaking.  Yet  Monsieur  Heger,  patiently  watch- 
ing, felt  the  presence  of  a  strange  power  under 
those  uncouth  exteriors. 

An  odd  little  man  of  much  penetration,  this 
French  schoolmaster.  "Homme  de  zele  et  de 
conscience,  il  possede  a  un  haat  degre1  £  eloquence 
du  bon  sens  et  du  cceur."  Fierce  and  despotic  in 
the  exaction  of  obedience,  yet  tender  of  heart, 
magnanimous  and  tyrannical,  absurdly  vain  and 
absolutely  unselfish.  His  wife's  school  was  a 
kingdom  to  him  ;  he  brought  to  it  an  energy, 
a  zeal,  a  faculty  of  administration  worthy  to  rule 
a  kingdom.  It  was  with  the  delight  of  a  bota- 
nist discovering  a  rare  plant  in  his  garden,  of 
a  politician  detecting  a  future  statesman  in  his 


108  EMILY  BRONTE. 

nursery,  that  he  perceived  the  unusual  faculty 
which  lifted  his  two  English  pupils  above  their 
schoolfellows.  He  watched  them  silently  for 
some  weeks.  When  he  had  made  quite  sure, 
he  came  forwards,  and,  so  to  speak,  claimed 
them  for  his  own. 

Charlotte  at  once  accepted  the  yoke.  All  that 
he  set  her  to  do  she  toiled  to  accomplish  ;  she 
followed  out  his  trains  of  thought ;  she  adopted 
the  style  he  recommended  ;  she  gave  him  in  re- 
turn for  all  his  pains  the  most  unflagging  obedi- 
ence, the  affectionate  comprehension  of  a  large 
intelligence.  She  writes  to  Ellen  of  her  delight 
in  learning  and  serving  :  "  It  is  very  natural  to 
me  to  submit,  very  unnatural  to  command." 

Not  so  with  Emily.  The  qualities  which  her 
sister  understood  and  accepted,  irritated  her  un- 
speakably. The  masterfulness  in  little  things, 
the  irritability,  the  watchfulness,  of  the  fiery  little 
professor  of  rhetoric  were  utterly  distasteful  to 
her.  She  contradicted  his  theories  to  his  face ; 
she  did  her  lessons  well,  but  as  she  chose  to  do 
them.  She  was  as  indomitable,  fierce,  unappeas- 
able, as  Charlotte  was  ready  and  submissive. 
And  yet  it  was  Emily  who  had  the  larger  share 
of  Monsieur  Hdger's  admiration.  Egotistic  and 
exacting  he  thought  her,  who  never  yielded  to 
his  petulant,  harmless  egoism,  who  never  gave 
way  to  his  benevolent  tyranny  ;  but  he  gave  her 


IN  THE  RUE  D'ISABELLE. 


109 


credit  for  logical  powers,  for  a  capacity  for  argu- 
ment unusual  in  a  man,  and  rare,  indeed,  in  a 
woman.  She,  not  Charlotte,  was  the  genius  in 
his  eyes,  although  he  complained  that  her  stub- 
born will  rendered  her  deaf  to  all  reason,  when 
her  own  determination,  or  her  own  sense  of  right, 
was  concerned.  He  fancied  she  might  be  a  great 
historian,  so  he  told  Mrs.  Gaskell.  "  Her  faculty 
of  imagination  was  such,  her  views  of  scenes  and 
characters  would  have  been  so  vivid  and  so  pow- 
erfully expressed,  and  supported  by  such  a  show 
of  argument,  that  it  would  have  dominated  over 
the  reader,  whatever  might  have  been  his  previ- 
ous opinions  or  his  cooler  perception  of  the  truth. 
She  should  have  been  a  man :  a  great  naviga- 
tor ! "  cried  the  little,  dark,  enthusiastic  rhetori- 
cian. "  Her  powerful  reason  would  have  deduced 
new  spheres  of  discovery  from  the  knowledge  of 
the  old  ;  and  her  strong  imperious  will  would 
never  have  been  daunted  by  opposition  or  diffi- 
culty ;  never  have  given  way  but  with  life  ! " 

Yet  they  were  never  friends  ;  though  Mon- 
sieur Heger  could  speak  so  well  of  Emily  at  a 
time,  be  it  remembered,  when  it  was  Charlotte's 
praises  that  were  sought,  when  Emily's  genius 
was  set  down  as  a  lunatic's  hobgoblin  of  night- 
mare potency.  He  and  she  were  alike  too  im- 
perious, too  independent,  too  stubborn.  A  couple 
of  swords,  neither  of  which  could  serve  to  sheathe 
the  other. 


HO  EM TLY  BRONTE. 

That  time  in  Brussels  was  wasted  upon  Emily. 
The  trivial  characters  which  Charlotte  made 
immortal  merely  annoyed  her.  The  new  im- 
pressions which  gave  another  scope  to  Char- 
lotte's vision  were  nothing  to  her.  All  that  was 
grand,  remarkable,  passionate,  under  the  surface 
of  that  conventional  Pensionnat  de  Demoiselles, 
was  invisible  to  Emily.  Notwithstanding  her 
genius  she  was  very  hard  and  narrow. 

Poor  girl,  she  was  sick  for  home.  It  was  all 
nothing  to  her,  less  than  a  dream,  this  place  she 
lived  in.  Charlotte's  engrossment  in  her  new 
life,  her  eagerness  to  please  her  master,  was  a 
contemptible  weakness  to  this  imbittered  heart. 
She  would  laugh  when  she  found  her  elder 
sister  trying  to  arrange  her  homely  gowns  in 
the  French  taste,  and  stalk  silently  through  the 
large  schoolrooms  with  a  fierce  satisfaction  in 
her  own  ugly  sleeves,  in  the  Haworth  cut  of  her 
skirts.  She  seldom  spoke  a  word  to  any  one ; 
only  sometimes  she  would  argue  with  Monsieur 
Heger,  perhaps  secretly  glad  to  have  the  chance 
of  shocking  Charlotte.  If  they  went  out  to  tea, 
she  would  sit  still  on  her  chair,  answering  "Yes  " 
and  "  No ; "  inert,  miserable,  with  a  heart  full 
of  tears.  When  her  work  was  done  she  would 
walk  in  the  Cross-bowmen's  ancient  garden, 
under  the  trees,- leaning  on  her  shorter  sister's 
arm,  pale,  silent  —  a  tall,  stooping  figure.     Often 


IN  THE  RUE  D' ISA  BELLE.  IU 

she  said  nothing  at  all.  Charlotte,  also,  was 
very  profitably  speechless  ;  under  her  eyes  '  Vil- 
lette '  was  taking  shape.  But  Emily  did  not  think 
of  Brussels.     She  was  dreaming  of  Haworth. 

One  poem  that  she  wrote  at  this  time  may 
appropriately  be  quoted  here.  It  was,  Charlotte 
tells  us,  "composed  at  twilight,  in  the  school- 
room, when  the  leisure  of  the  evening  play- 
hour  brought  back,  in  full  tide,  the  thoughts  of 
home : " 

"  A  little  while,  a  little  while, 
The  weary  task  is  put  away, 
And  I  can  sing  and  I  can  smile 
Alike,  while  I  have  holiday. 

"  Where  wilt  thou  go,  my  harassed  heart  — 

What  thought,  what  scene,  invites  thee  now  ? 
What  spot,  or  near  or  far  apart, 
Has  rest  for  thee,  my  weary  brow  ? 

"  There  is  a  spot  mid  barren  hills, 

Where  winter  howls  and  driving  rain ; 
But,  if  the  dreary  tempest  chills, 
There  is  a  light  that  warms  again. 

"The  house  is  old,  the  trees  are  bare, 

Moonless  above  bends  twilight's  dome ; 
But  what  on  earth  is  half  so  dear  — 
So  longed  for  —  as  the  hearth  of  home  ? 

"  The  mute  bird  sitting  on  the  stone, 

The  dark  moss  dripping  from  the  wall, 
The  thorn-tree  gaunt,  the  walks  o'ergrown, 
I  love  them;  how  I  love  them  all  1 


1 1 2  EMIL  Y  BRONTE. 

"  And,  as  I  mused,  the  naked  room, 
The  alien  fire-light  died  away; 
And  from  the  midst  of  cheerless  gloom 
I  passed  to  bright,  unclouded  day. 

"A  little  and  a  lone  green  lane, 

That  opened  on  a  common  wide ; 
A  distant,  dreary,  dim,  blue  chain 
Of  mountains  circling  every  side  : 

"A  heaven  so  dear,  an  earth  so  calm, 
So  sweet,  so  soft,  so  hushed  an  air ; 
And  —  deepening  still  the  dream-like  charm  — 
Wild  moor-sheep  feeding  everywhere. 

"  That  was  the  scene,  I  knew  it  well ; 
I  knew  the  turfy  pathway's  sweep, 
That,  winding  o'er  each  billowy  swell, 

Marked  out  the  tracks  of  wandering  sheep. 

"Could  I  have  lingered  but  an  hour, 
It  well  had  paid  a  week  of  toil ; 
But  truth  has  banished  fancy's  power, 
Restraint  and  heavy  task  recoil. 

"  Even  as  I  stood  with  raptured  eye, 
Absorbed  in  bliss  so  deep  and  dear, 
My  hour  of  rest  had  fleeted  by, 

And  back  came  labor,  bondage,  care." 

Charlotte  meanwhile  writes  in  good,  even  in 
high  spirits  to  her  friend :  "  I  think  I  am  never 
unhappy,  my  present  life  is  so  delightful,  so  con- 
genial, compared  to  that  of  a  governess.  My 
time,  constantly  occupied,  passes  too  rapidly. 
Hitherto  both  Emily  and  I  have  had  good 
health,  and  therefore  we  have  been  able  to  work 


IN  THE  RUE  r?  ISA  BELLE. 


113 


well.  There  is  one  individual  of  whom  I  have 
not  yet  spoken  —  Monsieur  Heger,  the  husband 
of  Madame.  He  is  professor  of  rhetoric — a 
man  of  power  as  to  mind,  but  very  choleric 
and  irritable  as  to  temperament  —  a  little,  black, 
ugly  being,  with  a  face  that  varies  in  expression  ; 
sometimes  he  borrows  the  lineaments  of  an  in- 
sane tomcat,  sometimes  those  of  a  delirious 
hyena,  occasionally  —  but  very  seldom  —  he  dis- 
cards these  perilous  attractions  and  assumes  an 
air  not  a  hundred  times  removed  from  what  you 
would  call  mild  and  gentlemanlike.  He  is  very 
angry  with  me  just  at  present,  because  I  have 
written  a  translation  which  he  chose  to  stigma- 
tize as  '  peu  correct.'  He  did  not  tell  me  so,  but 
wrote  the  words  on  the  margin  of  my  book,  and 
asked,  in  brief,  stern  phrase,  how  it  happened 
that  my  compositions  were  always  better  than 
my  translations  ?  adding  that  the  thing  seemed 
to  him  inexplicable." 

The  reader  will  already  have  recognized  in  the 
black,  ugly,  choleric  little  professor  of  rhetoric, 
the  one  absolutely  natural  hero  of  a  woman's 
novel,  the  beloved  and  whimsical  figure  of  the 
immortal  Monsieur  Paul  Emanuel. 

"He  and  Emily,"  adds  Charlotte,  "don't  draw 
well  together  at  all.  Emily  works  like  a  horse, 
and  she  has  had  great  difficulties  to  contend 
with,  far  greater  than  I  have  had." 

8  * 


114 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


Emily  did  indeed  work  hard.  She  was  there 
to  work,  and  not  till  she  had  learned  a  certain 
amount  would  her  conscience  permit  her  to  re- 
turn to  Haworth.  It  was  for  dear  liberty  that 
she  worked.  She  began  German,  a  favorite 
study  in  after  years,  and  of  some  purpose,  since 
the  style  of  Hoffmann  left  its  impression  on  the 
author  of  '  Wuthering  Heights.'  She  worked 
hard  at  music  ;  and  in  half  a  year  the  stum- 
bling schoolgirl  became  a  brilliant  and  proficient 
musician.  Her  playing  is  said  to  have  been  sin- 
gularly accurate,  vivid,  and  full  of  fire.  French, 
too,  both  in  grammar  and  in  literature,  was  a 
constant  study. 

Monsieur  Heger  recognized  the  fact  that  in 
dealing  with  the  Brontes  he  had  not  to  make  the 
customary  allowances  for  a  schoolgirl's  undevel- 
oped inexperience.  These  were  women  of  ma- 
ture and  remarkable  intelligence.  The  method 
he  adopted  in  teaching  them  was  rather  that  of 
a  University  professor  than  such  as  usually  is 
used  in  a  pensionnat.  He  would  choose  some 
masterpiece  of  French  style,  some  passage  of 
eloquence  or  portraiture,  read  it  to  them  with  a 
brief  lecture  on  its  distinctive  qualities,  pointing 
out  what  was  exaggerated,  what  apt,  what  false, 
what  subtle  in  the  author's  conception  or  his 
mode  of  expressing  it.  They  were  then  dis- 
missed to  make  a  similar  composition,  without 
0 


IN  THE  RUE  HISABELLE. 


"5 


the  aid  of  grammar  or  dictionary,  availing  them- 
selves as  far  as  possible  of  the  nuances  of  style 
and  the  peculiarities  of  method  of  the  writer 
chosen  as  the  model  of  trie  hour.  In  this  way 
the  girls  became  intimately  acquainted  with  the 
literary  technique  of  the  best  French  masters. 
To  Charlotte  the  lessons  were  of  incalculable 
value,  perfecting  in  her  that  clear  and  accurate 
style  which  makes  her  best  work  never  weari- 
some, never  old-fashioned.  But  the  very  thought 
of  imitating  any  one,  especially  of  imitating  any 
French  writer,  was  repulsive  to  Emily,  "  rustic 
all  through,  moorish,  wild  and  knotty  as  a  root 
of  heath." 1  When  Monsieur  Heger  had  ex- 
plained his  plan  to  them,  "Emily  spoke  first; 
and  said  that  she  saw  no  good  to  be  derived  from 
it ;  and  that  by  adopting  it  they  would  lose  all 
originality  of  thought  and  expression.  She  would 
have  entered  into  an  argument  on  the  subject, 
but  for  this  Monsieur  Heger  had  no  time.  Char- 
lotte then  spoke  ;  she  also  doubted  the  success 
of  the  plan  ;  but  she  would  follow  out  Monsieur 
Heger' s  advice,  because  she  was  bound  to  obey 
him  while  she  was  his  pupil."  2  Charlotte  soon 
found  a  keen  enjoyment  in  this  species  of  literary 
composition,  yet  Emily's  devoir  was  the  best. 
They  are,  alas,  no  longer  to  be  seen,  no  longer 
in  the  keeping  of  so  courteous  and  proud  a  guar- 

1  C.  Bronte.  2  Mrs.  Gaskell. 


Il6  EMILY  BRONTE. 

dian  as  Mrs.  Gaskell  had  to  deal  with  ;  but  she 
and  Monsieur  Heger  both  have  expressed  their 
opinions  that  in  genius,  imagination,  power,  and 
force  of  language,  Emily  was  the  superior  of  the 
two  sisters. 

So  great  was  the  personality  of  this  energetic, 
silent,  brooding,  ill-dressed  young  Englishwoman, 
that  all  who  knew  her  recognized  in  her  the 
genius  they  were  slow  to  perceive  in  her  more 
sociable  and  vehement  sister.  Madame  Heger, 
the  worldly,  cold-mannered  surveillante  of  Vil- 
lette,  avowed  the  singular  force  of  a  nature  most 
antipathetic  to  her  own.  Yet  Emily  had  no 
companions  ;  the  only  person  of  whom  we  hear, 
in  even  the  most  negative  terms  of  friendliness, 
is  one  of  the  teachers,  a  certain  Mademoiselle 
Marie,  "  talented  and  original,  but  of  repulsive 
and  arbitrary  manners,  which  have  made  the 
whole  school,  except  Emily  and  myself,  her 
bitter  enemies."  No  less  arbitrary  and  repul- 
sive seemed  poor  Emily  herself,  a  sprig  of  purple 
heath  at  discord  with  those  bright,  smooth  ge- 
raniums and  lobelias ;  Emily,  of  whom  every 
surviving  friend  extols  the  never-failing,  quiet 
unselfishness,  the  genial  spirit  ready  to  help,  the 
timid  but  faithful  affection.  She  was  so  com- 
pletely Jwrs  de  son  assiette  that  even  her  virtues 
were  misplaced. 

There  was  always  one  thing  she  could  do,  one 


IN  THE  RUE  D' ISA  BELLE. 


117 


thing  as  natural  as  breath  to  Emily -^deter- 
mined labor.  In  that  merciful  engrossment  she 
could  forget  her  heartsick  weariness  and  the  jar- 
ring strangeness  of  things  ;  every  lesson  con- 
quered was  another  step  taken  on  the  long  road 
home.  And  the  days  allowed  ample  space  for 
work,  although  it  was  supported  upon  a  some- 
what slender  diet. 

*  Counting  boarders  and  externes,  Madame  He- 
ger's  school  numbered  over  a  hundred  pupils. 
These  were  divided  into  three  classes  ;  the 
second,  in  which  the  Brontes  were,  containing 
sixty  students.  In  the  last  row,  side  by  side, 
absorbed  and  quiet,  sat  Emily  and  Charlotte. 
Soon  after  rising,  the  pensionnaires  were  given 
their  light  Belgian  breakfast  of  coffee  and  rolls. 
Then  from  nine  to  twelve  they  studied.  Three 
mistresses  and  seven  professors  were  engaged 
to  take  the  different  classes.  At  twelve  a  lunch 
of  bread  and  fruit ;  then  a  turn  in  the  green  alley, 
Charlotte  and  Emily  always  walking  together. 
From  one  till  two,  fancy-work  ;  from  two  till  four, 
lessons  again.  Then  dinner :  the  one  solid  meal 
of  the  day.  From  five  till  six  the  hour  was  free, 
Emily's  musing-hour.  From  six  till  seven  the 
terrible  lecture  pieuse,  hateful  to  the  Brontes' 
Protestant  spirit.  At  eight  a  supper  of  rolls 
and  water  ;  then  prayers,  and  to  bed. 

The  room   they  slept  in  was  a  long  school- 


1 1 8  EMIL  Y  BRONTE. 

dormitory.  After  all  they  could  not  get  the 
luxury,  so  much  desired,  of  a  separate  room. 
But  their  two  beds  were  alone  together  at  the 
further  end,  veiled  in  white  curtains  ;  discreet 
and  retired  as  themselves.  Here,  after  the  day's 
hard  work,  they  slept.  In  sleep,  one  is  no  longer 
an  exile. 

But  often  Emily  did  not  sleep.  The  old,  well- 
known  pain,  wakefulness,  longing,  was  again  be- 
ginning to  relax  her  very  heartstrings.  "  The 
same  suffering  and  conflict  ensued,  heightened 
by  the  strong  recoil  of  her  upright  heretic  and 
English  spirit  from  the  gentle  Jesuitry  of  the 
foreign  and  Romish  system.  Once  more  she 
seemed  sinking,  but  this  time  she  rallied  through 
the  mere  force  of  resolution:  with  inward  re- 
morse and  shame  she  looked  back  on  her  former 
failure,  and  resolved  to  conquer,  but  the  victory 
cost  her  dear.  She  was  never  happy  till  she 
carried  her  hard-won  knowledge  back  to  the 
remote  English  village,  the  old  parsonage  house 
and  desolate  Yorkshire  hills."  x 

But  not  yet,  not  yet,  this  happiness  !  The 
opportunity  that  had  been  so  hardly  won  must 
not  be  thrown  away  before  the  utmost  had  been 
made  of  it.  And  she  was  not  utterly  alone. 
Charlotte  was  there.  The  success  that  she  had 
in  her  work  must  have  helped  a  little  to  make 

1  C.  Bronte.     Memoir  of  her  sisters. 


IN  THE  RUE  DVSA BELLE. 


119 


her  foreign  home  tolerable  to  her.  Soon  she 
knew  enough  of  music  to  give  lessons  to  the 
younger  pupils.  Then  German,  costing  her  and 
Charlotte  an  extra  ten  francs  the  month,  as  also 
much  severe  study  and  struggle.  Charlotte 
writes  in  the  summer  :  "  Emily  is  making  rapid 
progress  in  French,  German,  music,  and  drawing. 
Monsieur  and  Madame  Heger  begin  to  recognize 
the  valuable  parts  of  her  character  under  her 
singularities." 

It  was  doubtful,  even,  whether  they  would  come 
home  in  September.  Madame  Heger  made  a 
proposal  to  her  two  English  pupils  for  them  to 
stay  on,  without  paying,  but  without  salary,  for 
half  a  year.  She  would  dismiss  her  English 
teacher,  whose  place  Charlotte  would  take.  Em- 
ily was  to  teach  music  to  the  younger  pupils. 
The  proposal  was  kind,  and  would  be  of  advan- 
tage to  the  sisters. 

Charlotte  declared  herself  inclined  to  accept 
it.  "  I  have  been  happy  in  Brussels,"  she  averred. 
And  Emily,  though  she,  indeed,  was  not  *happy, 
acknowledged  the  benefit  to  be  derived  from  a 
longer  term  of  study.  Six  months,  after  all,  was 
rather  short  to  gain  a  thorough  knowledge  of 
French,  with  Italian  and  German,  when  you  add 
to  these  acquirements  music  and  drawing,  which 
Emily  worked  at  with  a  will.  Besides,  she  could 
not  fail  again,  could  not  go  back  to  Haworth 


120  EMILY  BRONTE. 

leaving  Charlotte  behind ;  neither  could  she 
spoil  Charlotte's  future  by  persuading  her  to 
reject  Madame  Heger's  terms.  So  both  sisters 
agreed  to  stay  in  Brussels.  They  were  not  utterly 
friendless  there  ;  two  Miss  Taylors,  schoolfellows 
and  dear  friends  of  Charlotte's,  were  at  school  at 
the  Chateau  de  Kokleberg,  just  outside  the  bar- 
riers. Readers  of  'Shirley'  know  them  as  Rose 
and  Jessie  Yorke.  The  Brontes  met  them  often, 
nearly  every  week,  at  some  cousins  of  the  Tay- 
lors, who  lived  in  the  town.  But  this  diversion, 
pleasant  to  Charlotte,  was  merely  an  added  an- 
noyance to  Emily.  She  would  sit  stiff  and  silent, 
unable  to  say  a  word,  longing  to  be  somewhere 
at  her  ease.  Mrs.  Jenkins,  too,  had  begun  with 
asking  them  to  spend  their  Sundays  with  her ; 
but  Emily  never  said  a  word,  and  Charlotte, 
though  sometimes  she  got  excited  and  spoke 
well  and  vehemently,  never  ventured  on  an 
opinion  till  she  had  gradually  wheeled  round 
in  her  chair  with  her  back  to  the  person  she 
addressed.  They  were  so  shy,  so  rustic,  Mrs. 
Jenkins  gave  over  inviting  them,  feeling  that 
they  did  not  like  to  refuse,  and  found  it  no 
pleasure  to  come.  Charlotte,  indeed,  still  had 
the  Taylors,  their  cousins,  and  the  family  of  a 
doctor  living  in  the  town,  whose  daughter  was 
a  pupil  and  friend  of  hers.  Charlotte,  too,  had 
Madame  Heger  and  her  admired  professor  of 


IN  THE  RUE  D'lSA BELLE.  \2\ 

rhetoric ;  but  Emily  had  no  friend  except  her 
sister. 

Nevertheless,  it  was  settled  they  should  stay. 
The  grandes  vacances  began  on  the  15  th  of  Au- 
gust, and,  as  the  journey  to  Yorkshire  cost  so 
much,  and  as  they  were  anxious  to  work,  the 
Bronte  girls  spent  their  holidays  in  Rue  d' Isa- 
bella Besides  themselves,  only  six  or  eight 
boarders  remained.  All  their  friends  were  away 
holiday-making  ;  but  they  worked  hard,  prepar- 
ing their  lessons  for  the  masters  who,  holiday- 
less  as  they,  had  stayed  behind  in  white,  dusty, 
blazing,  airless  Brussels,  to  give  lectures  to  the 
scanty  class  at  Madame  Heger's  pensionnat. 

So  the  dreary  six  weeks  passed  away.  In 
October  the  term  began  again,  the  pupils  came 
back,  new  pupils  were  admitted,  Monsieur  He- 
ger  was  more  gesticulatory,  vehement,  com- 
manding, than  usual,  and  Madame,  in  her  quiet 
way,  was  no  less  occupied.  Life  and  youth  filled 
the  empty  rooms.  The  Bronte  girls,  sad  enough 
indeed,  for  their  friend  Martha  Taylor  had  died 
suddenly  at  the  Chateau  de  Kokleberg,  were,  not- 
withstanding, able  to  feel  themselves  in  a  more 
natural  position  for  women  of  their  age.  Charlotte, 
henceforth,  by  Monsieur  Heger's  orders,  "  Made- 
moiselle Charlotte,"  was  the  new  English  teacher; 
Emily  the  assistant  music-mistress.  But,  in  the 
middle  of  October,  in  the  first  flush  of  their  em- 


122  EMILY  BRONTE. 

ployment,  came  a  sudden  recall  to  Haworth. 
Miss  Branwell  was  very  ill.  Immediately  the 
two  girls,  who  owed  so  much  to  her,  who,  but 
for  her  bounty,  could  never  have  been  so  far 
away  in  time  of  need,  decided  to  go  home.  They 
broke  their  determination  to  Monsieur  and  Ma- 
dame Heger,  who,  sufficiently  generous  to  place 
the  girls'  duty  before  their  own  convenience,  up- 
held them  in  their  course.  They  hastily  packed 
up  their  things,  took  places  via  Antwerp  to  Lon- 
don, and  prepared  to  start.  At  the  last  moment, 
the  trunks  packed,  in  the  early  morning  the 
postman  came.  He  brought  another  letter  from 
Haworth.     Their  aunt  was  dead. 

So  much  the  greater  need  that  they  should 
hasten  home.  Their  father,  left  without  his 
companion  of  twenty  years,  to  keep  his  house, 
to  read  to  him  at  night,  to  discuss  with  him  on 
equal  terms,  their  father  would  be  lonely  and 
distressed.  Henceforth  one  of  his  daughters 
must  stay  with  him.  Anne  was  in  an  excellent 
situation  ;  must  they  ask  her  to  give  it  up  ? 
And  what  now  of  the  school,  the  school  at  Bur- 
lington ?  There  was  much  to  take  counsel  over 
and  consider  ;  they  must  hurry  home.  So,  know- 
ing the  worst,  their  future  hanging  out  of  shape 
and  loose  before  their  eyes,  they  set  out  on  their 
dreary  journey,  knowing  not  whether  or  when 
they  might  return. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


A    RETROSPECT. 


"  Poor,  brilliant,  gay,  moody,  moping,  wildly  ex- 
citable, miserable  Bronte  !  No  history  records 
your  many  struggles  after  the  good  —  your  wit, 
brilliance,  attractiveness,  eagerness  for  excite- 
ment—  all  the  qualities  which  made  you  such 
'  good  company '  and  dragged  you  down  to  an 
untimely  grave." 

Thus  ejaculates  Mr.  Francis  H.  Grundy,  re- 
membering the  boon-companion  of  his  early 
years,  the  half-insane,  pitiful  creature  that  opium 
and  brandy  had  made  of  clever  Branwell  at 
twenty-two.  Returned  from  Bradford,  his  ner- 
vous system  racked  by  opium  fumes,  he  had 
loitered  about  at  Haworth  until  his  father,  stub- 
born as  he  was,  perceived  the  obvious  fact  that 
every  idle  day  led  his  only  son  more  hopelessly 
down  to  the  pit  of  ruin.  At  last  he  exerted  his 
influence  to  find  some  work  for  Branwell,  and 
obtained  for  his  reckless,  fanciful,  morbid  lad 
the  post  of  station-master  at  a  small  roadside 
place,  Luddendenfoot  by  name,  on  the  Lanca- 


124 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


shire  and  Yorkshire  Railway.  Thither  he  went 
some  months  before  Charlotte  and  Emily  left 
for  Brussels.  It  was  there  Mr.  Grundy  met 
him  ;  a  novel  station-master. 

"  Had  a  position  been  chosen  for  this  strange 
creature  for  the  express  purpose  of  driving  him 
several  steps  to  the  bad,  this  must  have  been  it. 
The  line  was  only  just  opened.  The  station  was 
a  rude  wooden  hut,  and  there  was  no  village 
near  at  hand.  Alone  in  the  wilds  of  Yorkshire, 
with  few  books,  little  to  do,  no  prospects,  and 
wretched  pay,  with  no  society  congenial  to  his 
better  taste,  but  plenty  of  wild,  rollicking,  hard- 
headed,  half-educated  manufacturers,  who  would 
welcome  him  to  their  houses,  and  drink  with 
him  as  often  as  he  chose  to  come,  what  was  this 
morbid  man,  who  could  n't  bear  to  be  alone,  to 
do  ? "  > 

What  Branwell  always  did,  in  fine,  was  that 
which  was  easiest  to  him  to  do.  He  drank  him- 
self violent,  when  he  did  not  drink  himself 
maudlin.  He  left  the  porter  at  the  station  to 
keep  the  books,  and  would  go  off  for  days  "  on 
the  drink  "  with  his  friends  and  fellow-carousers. 
About  this  time  Mr.  Grundy,  then  an  engineer 
at  Halifax,  fell  in  with  the  poor,  half-demented, 
lonely  creature,  and  for  a  while  things  went  a 
little  better. 

1  '  Pictures  of  the  Past'     F.  H.  Grundy. 


A   RETROSPECT. 


125 


Drink  and  riot  had  not  embellished  the  tawny- 
maned,  laughing,  handsome  darling  of  Havvorth. 
Here  is  his  portrait  as  at  this  time  he  appeared 
to  his  friend : 

"He  was  insignificantly  small  —  one  of  his 
life's  trials.  He  had  a  mass  of  red  hair,  which 
he  wore  brushed  high  off  his  forehead  —  to  help 
his  height,  I  fancy  —  a  great,  bumpy,  intellec- 
tual forehead,  nearly  half  the  size  of  the  whole 
facial  contour ;  small  ferrety  eyes,  deep-sunk 
and  still  further  hidden  by  the  never-removed 
spectacles  ;  prominent  nose,  but  weak  lower  fea- 
tures. He  had  a  downcast  look,  which  never 
varied,  save  for  a  rapid  momentary  glance  at 
long  intervals.  Small  and  thin  of  person,  he 
was  the  reverse  of  attractive  at  first  sight." 

Yet  this  insignificant,  sunken-eyed  slip  of  hu- 
manity had  a  spell  for  those  who  heard  him 
speak.  There  was  no  subject,  moral,  intellectual, 
or  philosophic,  too  remote  or  too  profound  for  him 
to  measure  it  at  a  moment's  notice,  with  the  ever- 
ready,  fallacious  plumb-line  of  his  brilliant  vanity. 
He  would  talk  for  hours  :  be  eloquent,  convin- 
cing, almost  noble  ;  and  afterwards  accompany 
his  audience  to  the  nearest  public-house. 

"At  times  we  would  drive  over  in  a  gig  to 
Havvorth  (twelve  miles)  and  visit  his  people. 
He  was  there  at  his  best,  and  would  be  eloquent 
and  amusing,  although  sometimes  he  would  burst 


^126  EMILY  BRONTE. 

into  tears  when  returning,  and  swear  that  he 
meant  to  amend.  I  believe,  however,  that  he 
was  half  mad  and  could  not  control  himself."  ' 

So  must  his  friends  in  kindness  think.  Mad  ; 
if  haunting,  morbid  dreads  and  fancies  conjured 
up  by  poisonous  drugs  and  never  to  be  laid  ;  if 
a  will  laid  prostrate  under  the  yoke  of  unclean 
habits  ;  if  a  constitution  prone  to  nervous  de- 
rangement and  blighted  by  early  excess  ;  if  such 
things,  forcing  him  by  imperceptible  daily  pres- 
sure to  choose  the  things  he  loathed,  to  be  the 
thing  he  feared,  to  act  a  part  abhorrent  to  his 
soul ;  if  such  estranging  and  falsification  of  a 
man's  true  self  may  count  as  lunacy,  the  luck- 
less, worthless  boy  was  mad. 

It  must  have  galled  him,  going  home,  to  be 
welcomed  so  kindly,  hoped  so  much  from,  by 
those  who  had  forgiven  amply,  and  did  not 
dream  how  heavy  a  mortgage  had  since  been 
laid  upon  their  pardon  ;  to  have  talked  to  the 
prim,  pretty  old  lady  who  denied  herself  every 
day  to  save  an  inheritance  for  him  ;  to  watch 
pious,  gentle  Anne,  into  whose  dreams  the  sins 
she  prayed  against  had  never  entered  ;  worst  of 
all,  the  sight  of  his  respectable,  well-preserved 
father,  honored  by  all  the  parish,  successful, 
placed  by  his  own  stern,  continued  will  high 
beyond  the  onslaughts  of  temptation,  yet  with 

1  Pictures  of  the  Past. 


A   RETROSPECT.  i2y 

a.  temperament  singularly  akin  to  that  morbid, 
passionate  son's. 

So  he  would  weep  going  home  ;  weep  for  his 
falling  off,  and  perhaps  more  sincerely  for  the 
short  life  of  his  contrition.  Then  the  long  even- 
ings alone  with  his  thoughts  in  that  lonely  place 
would  make  him  afraid  of  repentance,  afraid  of 
God,  himself,  night,  all.     He  would  drink. 

He  had  fits  of  as  contrary  pride.  "  He  was 
proud  of  his  name,  his  strength,  and  his  abili- 
ties." Proud  of  his  name !  He  wrote  a  poem 
on  it,  '  Bronte,'  an  eulogy  of  Nelson,  which  won 
the  patronizing  approbation  of  Leigh  Hunt,  Miss 
Martineau,  and  others,  to  whom,  at  his  special  re- 
quest, it  was  submitted.  Had  he  ever  heard  of 
his  dozen  aunts  and  uncles,  the  Pruntys  of  Aha- 
derg  ?  Or  if  not,  with  what  sensations  must 
the  Vicar  of  Haworth  have  listened  to  this  bla- 
zoning forth  and  triumphing  over  the  glories  of 
his  ancient  name  ? 

Branwell  had  fits  of  passion,  too,  the  repeti- 
tion of  his  father's  vagaries.  "  I  have  seen  him 
drive  his  doubled  fist  through  the  panels  of  a 
door  —  it  seemed  to  soothe  him."  The  rough 
side  of  his  nature  got  full  play,  and  perhaps  won 
him  some  respect  denied  to  his  cleverness,  in 
the  society  amongst  which  he  was  chiefly  thrown. 
For  a  little  time  the  companionship  of  Mr. 
Grundy  served  to  rescue  him  from  utter  aban- 


128  EMILY  BRONTE. 

donment  to  license.  But  in  the  midst  of  this 
improvement,  the  crash  came.  As  he  had  sown, 
he  reaped. 

Those  long  absences,  drinking  at  the  houses 
of  his  friends,  had  been  turned  to  account  by  the 
one  other  inhabitant  of  the  station  at  Ludden- 
denfoot.  The  luggage  porter  was  left  to  keep 
the  books,  and,  following  his  master's  example, 
he  sought  his  own  enjoyment  before  his  em- 
ployers' gain.  He  must  have  made  a  pretty 
penny  out  of  those  escapades  of  Branwell's,  for 
some  months  after  the  Vicar  of  Haworth  had 
obtained  his  son's  appointment,  when  the  books 
received  their  customary  examination,  serious 
defalcations  were  discovered.  An  inquiry  was 
instituted,  which  brought  to  light  Branwell's 
peculiar  method  of  managing  the  station.  The 
lad  himself  was  not  suspected  of  actual  theft ; 
but  so  continued,  so  glaring,  had  been  his  negli- 
gence, so  hopeless  the  cause,  that  he  was  sum- 
marily dismissed  the  company's  service,  and  sent 
home  in  dire  disgrace  to  Haworth. 

He  came  home  not  only  in  disgrace,  but  ill. 
Never  strong,  his  constitution  was  deranged  and 
broken  by  his  excesses  ;  yet,  strangely  enough, 
consumption,  which  carried  off  so  prematurely 
the  more  highly  gifted,  the  more  strongly  prin- 
cipled daughters  of  the  house,  consumption, 
which  might  have  been  originally  produced  by 


A    RETROSPECT.  J2g 

the  vicious  life  this  youth  had  led,  laid  no 
claim  upon  him.  His  mother's  character  and 
her  disease  descended  to  her  daughters  only. 
Branwell  inherited  his  father's  violent  temper, 
strong  passions,  and  nervous  weakness  without 
the  strength  of  will  and  moral  fibre  that  made 
his  father  remarkable.  Probably  this  brilliant, 
weak,  shallow,  selfish  lad  reproduced  accurately 
enough  the  characteristics  of  some  former 
Prunty  ;  for  Patrick  Branwell  was  as  distinctly 
an  Irishman  as  if  his  childhood  had  been  spent 
in  his  grandfather's  cabin  at  Ahaderg. 

He  came  home  to  find  his  sisters  all  away. 
Anne  in  her  situation  as  governess.  Emily  and 
Charlotte  in  Rue  d'Isabelle.  No  one,  therefore, 
to  be  a  check  upon  his  habits,  save  the  neat  old 
lady,  growing  weaker  day  by  day,  who  spent 
nearly  all  her  time  in  her  bedroom  to  avoid  the 
paven  floors  of  the  basement ;  and  the  father, 
who  did  not  care  for  company,  took  his  meals 
alone  for  fear  of  indigestion,  and  found  it  neces- 
sary to  spend  the  succeeding  time  in  perfect 
quiet.  The  greater  part  of  the  day  was,  there- 
fore, at  Branwell's  uncontrolled,  unsupervised 
disposal. 

To  do  him  justice,  he  does  seem  to  have  made 

so  much  effort  after  a  new  place  of  work  as  was 

involved  in  writing  letters  to  his  friend  Grundy, 

and  probably  to  others,  suing  for  employment. 

9 


l3o  EMILY  BRONTE. 

But  his  offence  had  been  too  glaring  to  be  con- 
doned. Mr.  Gruncly  seems  to  have  advised  the 
hapless  young  man  to  take  shelter  in  the 
Church,  where  the  influence  of  his  father  and 
his  mother's  relatives  might  help  him  along ; 
but,  as  Branwell  said,  he  had  not  a  single  quali- 
fication, "  save,  perhaps,  hypocrisy."  Parsons' 
sons  rarely  have  a  great  idea  of  the  Church. 
The  energy,  self-denial,  and  endurance  which 
a  clergyman  ought  to  possess  were  certainly 
not  in  Branwell's  line.  Besides,  how  could  he 
take  his  degree  ?  Montgomery,  it  seems,  rec- 
ommended him  to  make  trial  of  literature. 
"All  very  well,  but  I  have  little  conceit  of  my- 
self and  great  desire  for  activity.  You  say  that 
you  write  with  feelings  similar  to  those  with 
which  you  last  left  me ;  keep  them  no  longer. 
I  trust  I  am  somewhat  changed,  or  I  should 
not  be  worth  a  thought  ;  and  though  nothing 
could  ever  give  me  your  buoyant  spirits  and 
an  outward  man  corresponding  therewith,  I  may, 
in  dress  and  appearance,  emulate  something  like 
ordinary  decency.  And  now,  wherever  coming 
years  may  lead  —  Greenland's  snows  or  sands  of 
Afric  — I  trust,  etc.     9th  June,  1842."  l 

It  is  doubtful,  judging  from  Branwell's  letters 
and  his  verses,  whether  anything  much  better 
than  his  father's  '  Cottage  in  the  Wood,'  would 

1  Pictures  of  the  Past. 


A   RETROSPECT. 


131 


have  resulted  from  his  following  the  advice  of 
James  Montgomery.  Fluent  ease,  often  on  the 
verge  of  twaddle,  with  here  and  there  a  bright, 
felicitous  touch,  with  here  and  there  a  smack  of 
the  conventional  hymn-book  and  pulpit  twang  — 
such  weak  and  characterless  effusions  are  all 
that  is  left  of  the  passion-ridden  pseudo-genius 
of  Haworth.  Real  genius  is  perhaps  seldom  of 
such  showy  temperament. 

Poor  Branwell !  it  needed  greater  strength 
than  his  to  retrieve  that  first  false  step  into  ruin. 
He  cannot  help  himself,  and  can  find  no  one  to 
help  him  ;  he  appeals  again  to  Mr.  Grundy  (in  a 
letter  which  must,  from  internal  evidence,  have 
been  written  about  this  time,  although  a  dif- 
ferent and  impossible  year  is  printed  at  its 
heading) : 

"Dear  Sir, 

"  I  cannot  avoid  the  temptation  to  cheer  my 
spirits  by  scribbling  a  few  lines  to  you  while  I 
sit  here  alone,  all  the  household  being  at  church 
—  the  sole  occupant  of  an  ancient  parsonage 
among  lonely  hills,  which  probably  will  never 
hear  the  whistle  of  an  engine  till  I  am  in  my 
grave. 

"After  experiencing,  since  my  return  home, 
extreme  pain  and  illness,  with  mental  depres- 
sion worse   than   either,   I   have  at  length  ac- 


1 32  EMIL  Y  BRONTE. 

quired  health   and  strength  and   soundness  of 
mind,  far  superior,  I   trust,  to  anything  shown 
by  that  miserable  wreck  you  used  to  know  under 
my  name.     I  can  now  speak  cheerfully  and  en- 
joy the  company  of  another  without  the  stimu- 
lus of  six  glasses  of  .whiskey.     I  can  write,  think, 
and  act  with  some  apparent  approach  to  resolu- 
tion, and  I  only  want  a  motive  for  exertion  to  be 
happier  than  I  have  been  for  years.     But  I  feel 
my  recovery  from  almost  insanity  to  be  retarded 
by  having  nothing  to  listen  to  except  the  wind 
moaning    among   old  chimneys  and   older  ash- 
trees  —  nothing  to  look  at  except  heathery  hills, 
walked  over  when  life  had  all  to  hope  for  and 
nothing  to  regret  with  me  —  no  one  to  speak 
to  except  crabbed  old  Greeks  and  Romans  who 
have  been  dust  the  last  five  [sic]  thousand  years. 
And  yet  this  quiet  life,  from  its  contrast,  makes 
the  year  passed  at  Luddendenfoot  appear  like  a 
nightmare,  for   I   would    rather   give   my  hand 
than  undergo  again  the  grovelling  carelessness, 
the  malignant,  yet  cold  debauchery,  the  determi- 
nation to  find  out  how  far  mind  could  carry  body 
without  both  being  chucked  into  hell,  which  too 
often  marked  my  conduct  when  there,  lost  as 
I  was  to  all  I  really  liked,  and  seeking  relief  in 
the  indulgence  of  feelings  which  form  the  black- 
est spot  in  my  character. 

"Yet  I  have  something  still  left  me  which 


A   RETROSPECT. 


133 


may  do  me  service.  But  I  ought  not  to  remain 
too  long  in  solitude,  for  the  world  soon  forgets 
those  who  have  bidden  it  'good-by.'  Quiet  is 
an  excellent  cure,  but  no  medicine  should  be 
continued  after  a  patient's  recovery,  so  I  am 
about,  though  ashamed  of  the  business,  to  dun 

you  for  answers  to . 

"Excuse  the  trouble  I  am  giving  to  one  on 
whose  kindness  I  have  no  claim,  and  for  whose 
services  I  am  offering  no  return  except  grati- 
tude and  thankfulness,  which  are  already  due 
to  you.  Give  my  sincere  regards  to  Mr.  Ste- 
phenson. A  word  or  two  to  show  you  have  not 
altogether  forgotten  me  will  greatly  please, 

"  Yours,  etc." 

Alas,  no  helping  hand  rescued  the  sinking 
wretch  from  the  quicksands  of  idle  sensuality 
which  slowly  ingulfed  him  !  Yet,  at  this  time, 
there  might  have  been  hope,  had  he  been  kept 
from  evil.  Deliver  himself  he  could  not.  His 
"great  desire  for  activity"  seems  to  have  had  to 
be  in  abeyance  for  some  months,  for  on  the  25th 
of  October  he  is  still  at  Haworth.  He  then 
writes  to  Mr.  Grundy  again.  The  letter  brings 
us  up  to  the  time  when  —  in  the  cheerless  morn- 
ing—  Charlotte  and  Emily  set  out  on  their  jour- 
ney homewards ;  it  reveals  to  us  how  much  real 
undeserved  suffering  must  have  been  going  on 


134 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


side  by  side  with  Branwell's  purposeless  miser- 
ies in  the  gray  old  parsonage  at  Haworth.  The 
good  methodical  old  maiden  aunt  —  who  for 
twenty  years  had  given  the  best  of  her  heart  to 
this  gay  affectionate  nephew  of  hers  —  had  come 
down  to  the  edge  of  the  grave,  having  waited 
long  enough  to  see  the  hopeless  fallacy  of  all  her 
dreams  for  him,  all  her  affection.  Branwell, 
who  was  really  tender-hearted,  must  have  been 
sobered  then. 

He  writes  to  Mr.  Grundy  in  a  sincere  and 
manly  strain  : 

"  My  dear  Sir, 

"  There  is  no  misunderstanding.  I  have  had 
a  long  attendance  at  the  death-bed  of  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Weightman,  one  of  my  dearest  friends,  and 
now  I  am  attending  at  the  death-bed  of  my  Aunt, 
who  has  been  for  twenty  years  as  my  mother. 
I  expect  her  to  die  in  a  few  hours. 

"As  my  sisters  are  far  from  home,  I  have  had 
much  on  my  mind,  and  these  thiags  must  serve 
as  an  apology  for  what  was  never  intended  as 
neglect  of  your  friendship  to  us. 

"  I  had  meant  not  only  to  have  written  to  you, 
but  to  the  Rev.  James  Martineau,  gratefully  and 
sincerely  acknowledging  the  receipt  of  his  most 
kindly  and  truthful  criticism  —  at  least  in  advice, 
though  too  generous  far  in  praise  —  but  one  sad 


A   RETROSPECT. 


135 


ceremony  must,  I  fear,  be  gone  through  first. 
Give  my  most  sincere  respects  to  Mr.  Stephen- 
son, and  excuse  this  scrawl ;  my  eyes  are  too 
dim  with  sorrow  to  see  well.  Believe  me,  your 
not  very  happy,  but  obliged  friend  and  servant, 

"  P.  B.  Bronte." 

But  not  till  three  days  later  the  end  came. 
By  that  time  Anne  was  home  to  tend  the  woman 
who  had  taken  her,  a  little  child,  into  her  love 
and  always  kept  her  there.  Anne  had  ever  lived 
gladly  with  Miss  Branwell ;  her  more  dejected 
spirit  did  not  resent  the  occasional  oppressions, 
the  little  tyrannies,  which  revolted  Charlotte  and 
silenced  Emily.  And,  at  the  last,  all  the  con- 
stant self-sacrifice  of  those  twenty  years,  spent  for 
their  sake  in  a  strange  and  hated  country,  would 
shine  out,  and  yet  more  endear  the  sufferer  to 
those  who  had  to  lose  her. 

On  the  29th  of  October  Branwell  again  writes 
to  his  friend : 

"  My  dear  Sir, 

"As  I  don't  want  to  lose  a  real  friend,  I  write 
in  deprecation  of  the  tone  of  your  letter.  Death 
only  has  made  me  neglectful  of  your  kindness, 
and  I  have  lately  had  so  much  experience  with 
him,  that  your  sister  would  not  now  blame  me 
for  indulging  in  gloomy  visions  either  of  this 


136  EMILY  BRONTE. 

world  or  of  another.  I  am  incoherent,  I  fear, 
but  I  have  been  waking  two  nights  witnessing 
such  agonizing  suffering  as  I  would  not  wish  my 
worst  enemy  to  endure  ;  and  I  have  now  lost 
the  pride  and  director  of  all  the  happy  days  con- 
nected with  my  childhood.  I  have  suffered  such 
sorrow  since  I  last  saw  you  at  Haworth,  that  I  do 

not  now  care  if  I  were  fighting  in  India  or , 

since,  when  the  mind  is  depressed,  danger  is  the 
most  effectual  cure." 

Miss  Branwell  was  dead.  All  was  over :  she 
was  buried  on  a  Tuesday  morning,  before  Char- 
lotte and  Emily,  having  travelled  night  and  day, 
got  home.  They  found  Mr.  Bronte  and  Anne 
sitting  together,  quietly  mourning  the  customary 
presence  to  be  known  no  more.  Branwell  was 
not  there.  It  was  the  first  time  he  would  see 
his  sisters  since  his  great  disgrace;  he  could  not 
wait  at  home  to  welcome  them. 

Miss  Branwell's  will  had  to  be  made  known. 
The  little  property  that  she  had  saved  out  of  her 
frugal  income  was  all  left  to  her  three  nieces. 
Branwell  had  been  her  darling,  the  only  son, 
called  by  her  name ;  but  his  disgrace  had 
wounded  her  too  deeply.  He  was  not  even 
mentioned  in  her  will. 


CHAPTER   IX. 


THE    RECALL. 


Suddenly  recalled  from  what  had  seemed  the 
line  of  duty,  with  all  their  future  prospects 
broken,  the  three  sisters  found  themselves  again 
at  Haworth  together.  There  could  be  no  ques- 
tion now  of  their  keeping  a  school  at  Burlington  ; 
if  at  all,  it  must  be  at  Haworth,  where  their 
father  could  live  with  them.  Miss  Branwell's 
legacies  would  amply  provide  for  the  necessary 
alterations  in  the  house  ;  the  question  before 
them  was  whether  they  should  immediately  be- 
gin these  alterations,  or  first  of  all  secure  a 
higher  education  to  themselves. 

At  all  events  one  must  stay  at  home  to  keep 
house  for  Mr.  Bronte.  Emily  quickly  volun- 
teered to  be  the  one.  Her  offer  was  welcome  to 
all ;  she  was  the  most  experienced  housekeeper. 
Anne  had  a  comfortable  situation,  which  she 
might  resume  at  the  end  of  the  Christmas  holi- 
days, and  Charlotte  was  anxious  to  get  back  to 
Brussels. 

It  would  certainly  be  of  advantage  to  their 


138 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


school,  that  cherished  dream  now  so  likely  to 
come  true,  that  the  girls  should  be  able  to  teach 
German,  and  that  one  of  them  at  least  should 
speak  French  with  fluency  and  well.  Mon- 
sieur Heger  wrote  to  Mr.  Bronte  when  Charlotte 
and  Emily  left,  pointing  out  how  much  more 
stable  and  enduring  their  advantages  would  be- 
come, could  they  continue  for  another  year  at 
Brussels.  "  In  a  year,"  he  says,  "  each  of  your 
daughters  would  be  completely  provided  against 
the  future ;  each  of  them  was  acquiring  at  the 
same  time  instruction  and  the  science  to  instruct. 
Mademoiselle  Emily  has  been  learning  the  piano, 
receiving  lessons  from  the  best  master  that  we 
have  in  Brussels,  and  already  she  had  little  pu- 
pils of  her  own  ;  she  was  therefore  losing  at  the 
same  time  a  remainder  of  ignorance,  and  one, 
more  embarrassing  still,  of  timidity.  Mademoi- 
selle Charlotte  was  beginning  to  give  lessons  in 
French,  and  was  acquiring  that  assurance  and 
aplomb  so  necessary  to  a  teacher.  One  year 
more,  at  the  most,  and  the  work  had  been  com- 
pleted, and  completed  well." 

Emily,  as  we  know,  refused  the  lure.  Once 
at  Haworth,  she  was  not  to  be  induced,  by  offer 
of  any  advantages,  to  quit  her  native  heath.  On 
the  other  hand,  Charlotte  desired  nothing  better. 
Hers  was  a  nature  very  capable  of  affection,  of 
gratitude,  of  sentiment.     It  would  have  been  a 


THE  RECALL. 


139 


sore  wrench  to  her  to  break  so  suddenly  with  her 
busy,  quiet  life  in  the  old  mansion,  Rue  d'Isabelle. 
Almost  imperceptibly  she  had  become  fast  friends 
with  the  place.  Mary  Taylor  had  left,  it  is  true, 
and  bright,  engaging  Martha  slept  there,  too 
sound  to  hear  her,  in  the  Protestant  cemetery. 
But  in  foreign,  heretic,  distant  Brussels  there 
were  calling  memories  for  the  downright,  plain 
little  Yorkshire  woman.  She  could  not  choose 
but  hear.  The  blackavised,  tender-hearted,  fiery 
professor,  for  whom  she  felt  the  reverent,  eager 
friendship  that  intellectual  girls  often  give  to  a 
man  much  older  than  they ;  the  doctor's  family ; 
even  Madame  Beck ;  even  the  Belgian  school- 
girls—  she  should  like  to  see  them  all  again.  She 
did  not  perhaps  realize  how  different  a  place 
Brussels  would  seem  without  her  sister.  And  it 
would  certainly  be  an  advantage  for  the  school 
that  she  should  know  German.  For  these,  and 
many  reasons,  Charlotte  decided  to  renounce  a 
salary  of  ^50  a  year  offered  her  in  England,  and 
to  accept  that  of  £16  which  she  would  earn  in 
Brussels. 

Thus  it  was  determined  that  at  the  end  of  the 
Christmas  holidays  the  three  sisters  were  again 
to  be  divided.  But  first  they  were  nearly  three 
months  together. 

Bran  well  was  at  home.  Even  yet  at  Haworth 
that  was  a  pleasure  and  not  a  burden.     His  sis- 


I/J-O 


EMILY  BROXTE. 


ters  never  saw  him  at  his  worst ;  his  vehement 
repentance  brought  conviction  to  their  hearts. 
They  still  hoped  for  his  future,  still  said  to  each 
other  that  men  were  different  from  women,  and 
that  such  strong  passions  betokened  a  nature 
which,  if  once  directed  right,  would  be  passion- 
ately right.  They  did  not  feel  the  miserable 
flabbiness  of  his  moral  fibre  ;  did  not  know  that 
the  weak  slip  down  when  they  try  to  stand,  and 
cannot  march  erect.  They  were  both  too  tender 
and  too  harsh  with  their  brother,  because  they 
could  not  recognize  what  a  mere,  poor  creature 
was  this  erring  genius  of  theirs. 

Thus,  when  the  first  shock  was  over,  the  re- 
united family  was  most  contented.  Lightly, 
naturally,  as  an  autumn  leaf,  the  old  aunt  had 
fallen  out  of  the  household,  her  long  duties  over ; 
and  they — though  they  loved  and  mourned  her 
—  they  were  freer  for  her  departure.  There 
was  no  restraint  now  on  their  actions,  their 
opinions ;  they  were  mistresses  in  their  own 
home.  It  was  a  happy  Christmas,  though  not 
free  from  burden.  The  sisters,  parted  for  so 
long,  had  much  experience  to  exchange,  many 
plans  to  make.  They  had  to  revisit  their  old 
haunts  on  the  moors,  white  now  with  snow. 
There  were  walks  to  the  library  at  Keighley  for 
such  books  as  had  been  added  during  their  ab- 
sence.    Ellen  came  to  Haworth.     Then,  at  the 


THE  RECALL. 


141 


end  of  January,  1843,  Anne  went  back  to  her 
duties,  and  Charlotte  set  off  alone  for  Brussels. 

Emily  was  left  behind  with  Branwell ;  but  not 
for  long.  It  must  have  been  about  this  time 
that  the  ill-fated  young  man  obtained  a  place 
as  tutor  in  the  house  where  Anne  was  governess. 
It  appeared  a  most  fortunate  connection ;  the 
family  was  well  known  for  its  respectable  posi- 
tion, came  of  a  stock  eminent  in  good  works,  and 
the  sisters  might  well  believe  that,  under  Anne's 
gentle  influence  and  such  favoring  auspices,  their 
brother  would  be  led  into  the  way  of  the  just. 

Then  Emily  was  alone  in  the  gray  house,  save 
for  her  secluded  father  and  old  Tabby,  now  over 
seventy.  She  was  not  unhappy.  No  life  could 
be  freer  than  her  own  ;  it  was  she  that  disposed, 
she  too  that  performed  most  of  the  household 
work.  She  always  got  up  first  in  the  morning, 
and  did  the  roughest  part  of  the  day's  labor  before 
frail  old  Tabby  came  down  ;  since  kindness  and 
thought  for  others  were  part  of  the  nature  of  this 
unsocial,  rugged  woman.  She  did  the  household 
ironing  and  most  of  the  cookery.  She  made  the 
bread  ;  and  her  bread  was  famous  in  Haworth  for 
its  lightness  and  excellence.  As  she  kneaded 
the  dough,  she  would  glance  now  and  then  at  an 
open  book  propped  up  before  her.  It  was  her 
German  lesson.  But  not  always  did  she  study 
out  of  books  ;   those  who  worked  with  her  in 


142 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


that  kitchen,  young  girls  called  in  to  help  in 
stress  of  business,  remember  how  she  would 
keep  a  scrap  of  paper,  a  pencil,  at  her  side,  and 
how,  when  the  moment  came  that  she  could 
pause  in  her  cooking  or  her  ironing,  she  would 
jot  down  some  impatient  thought  and  then  re- 
sume her  work.  With  these  girls  she  was  always 
friendly  and  hearty  —  "  pleasant,  sometimes  quite 
jovial  like  a  boy,"  "  so  genial  and  kind,  a  little 
masculine,"  say  my  informants  ;  but  of  strangers 
she  was  exceedingly  timid,  and  if  the  butcher's 
boy  or  the  baker's  man  came  to  the  kitchen  door 
she  would  be  off  like  a  bird  into  the  hall  or  the 
parlor  till  she  heard  their  hob-nails  clumping 
down  the  path.  No  easy  getting  sight  of  that 
rare  bird.  Therefore,  it  may  be,  the  Haworth 
people  thought  more  of  her  powers  than  of  those 
of  Anne  or  Charlotte,  who  might  be  seen  at 
school  any  Sunday.  They  say:  "A  deal  o' 
folk  thout  her  th'  clever'st  o'  them  a',  hasum- 
iver  shoo  wur  so  timid,  shoo  cudn't  frame  to  let 
it  aat." 

For  amusements  she  had  her  pets  and  the 
garden.  She  always  fed  the  animals  herself : 
the  old  cat  ;  Flossy,  Anne's  favorite  spaniel  ; 
Keeper,  the  fierce  bulldog,  her  own  constant, 
dear  companion,  whose  portrait,  drawn  by  her 
spirited  hand,  is  still  extant.  And  the  creatures 
on  the  moor  were  all,  in  a  sense,  her  pets  and 


THE  RECALL. 


143 


familiar  with  her.  The  intense  devotion  of  this 
silent  woman  to  all  manner  of  dumb  creatures 
has  something  pathetic,  inexplicable,  almost  de- 
ranged. "  She  never  showed  regard  to  any 
human  creature  ;  all  her  love  was  reserved  for 
animals,"  said  some  shallow  jumper  at  conclu- 
sions to  Mrs.  Gaskell.  Regard  and  help  and 
stanch  friendliness  to  all  in  need  was  ever  char- 
acteristic of  Emily  Bronte ;  yet  between  her 
nature  and  that  of  the  fierce,  loving,  faithful 
Keeper,  that  of  the  wild  moor-fowl,  of  robins 
that  die  in  confinement,  of  quick-running  hares, 
of  cloud-sweeping,  tempest-boding  sea-mews, 
there  was  a  natural  likeness. 

The  silent -growing  flowers  were  also  her 
friends.  The  little  garden,  open  to  all  the 
winds  that  course  over  Lees  Moor  and  Stil- 
lingworth  Moor  to  the  blowy  summit  of  Ha- 
worth  street  —  that  little  garden  whose  only 
bulwark  against  the  storm  was  the  gravestones 
outside  the  railing,  the  stunted  thorns  and  cur- 
rant-bushes within — was  nevertheless  the  home 
of  many  sweet  and  hardy  flowers,  creeping  up 
under  the  house  and  close  to  the  shelter  of 
the  bushes.  So  the  days  went  swiftly  enough 
in  tending  her  house,  her  garden,  her  dumb 
creatures.  In  the  evenings  she  would  sit  on 
the  hearthrug  in  the  lonely  parlor,  one  arm 
thrown  round  Keeper's  tawny  neck,  studying  a 


144  EMILY  BRONTE. 

book.  For  it  was  necessary  to  study.  After 
the  next  Christmas  holidays  the  sisters  hoped 
to  reduce  to  practice  their  long-cherished  vision 
of  keeping  school  together.  Letters  from  Brus- 
sels showed  Emily  that  Charlotte  was  troubled, 
excited,  full  of  vague  disquiet.  She  would  be 
glad,  then,  to  be  home,  to  use  the  instrument  it 
had  cost  so  much  pains  to  perfect.  A  costly 
instrument,  indeed,  wrought  with  love,  anguish, 
lonely  fears,  vanquished  passion  ;  but  in  that 
time  no  one  guessed  that,  not  the  school-teach- 
er's German,  not  the  fluent  French  acquired 
abroad,  was  the  real  result  of  this  terrible  firing, 
but  a  novel  to  be  called  "  Villette." 

Emily  then,  "  Mine  bonnie  love,"  as  Charlotte 
used  to  call  her,  cannot  have  been  quite  certain 
of  this  dear  sister's  happiness  ;  and  as  time  went 
on,  Anne's  letters,  too,  began  to  give  disquieting 
tidings.  Not  that  her  health  was  breaking  down  ; 
it  was,  as  usual,  Branwell  whose  conduct  dis- 
tressed his  sisters.  He  had  altered  so  strangely  ; 
one  day  in  the  wildest  spirits,  the  next  moping 
in  despair,  giving  himself  mysterious  airs  of  im- 
portance, expressing  himself  more  than  satisfied 
with  his  situation,  smiling  oddly,  then,  perhaps, 
the  next  moment,  all  remorse  and  gloom.  Anne 
could  not  understand  what  ailed  him,  but  feared 
some  evil. 

At  home,  moreover,  troubles  slowly  increased. 


THE  RECALL. 


145 


Old  Tabby  grew  very  ill  and  could  do  no  work  ; 
the  girl  Hannah  left ;  Emily  had  all  the  busi- 
ness of  investing  the  little  property  belonging 
to  the  three  sisters  since  Miss  Branwell's  death  ; 
worse  still,  old  Mr.  Bronte's  health  began  to  flag, 
his  sight  to  fail.  Worst  of  all  —  in  that  dark- 
ness, despair,  loneliness  — 'the  old  man,  so  Emily 
feared,  acquired  the  habit  of  drinking,  though 
not  to  excess,  yet  more  than  his  abstemious  past 
allowed.  Doubtless  she  exaggerated  her  fears, 
with  Branwell  always  present  in  her  thoughts. 
But  Emily  grew  afraid,  alone  at  Haworth,  re- 
sponsible, knowing  herself  deficient  in  that  con- 
trolling influence  so  characteristic  of  her  elder 
sister.  Her  burden  of  doubt  was  more  than 
she  could  bear.  She  decided  to  write  to  Char- 
lotte. 

On  the  2d  of  January,  1844,  Charlotte  arrived 
at  Haworth. 

On  the  23d  of  the  month  she  wrote  to  her 
friend  : 

"  Every  one  asks  me  what  I  am  going  to  do 
now  that  I  am  returned  home,  and  every  one 
seems  to  expect  that  I  should  immediately  com- 
mence a  school.  In  truth  it  is  what  I  should 
wish  to  do.  I  desire  it  above  all  things,  I  have 
sufficient  money  for  the  undertaking,  and  I  hope 
now  sufficient  qualifications  to  give  me  a  fair 
chance   of   success ;    yet    I    cannot  yet   permit 


146  EMILY  BRONTE. 

myself  to  enter  upon  life  —  to  touch  the  object 
which  seems  now  within  my  reach,  and  which 
I  have  been  so  long  straining  to  attain.  You 
will  ask  me  why  ?  It  is  on  papa's  account ;  he 
is  now,  as  you  know,  getting  old  ;  and  it  grieves 
me  to  tell  you  that  he  is  losing  his  sight.  I 
have  felt  for  some  months  that  I  ought  not  to 
be  away  from  him,  and  I  feel  now  that  it  would 
be  too  selfish  to  leave  him  (at  least  as  long  as 
Branwell  and  Anne  are  absent)  in  order  to  pur- 
sue selfish  interests  of  my  own.  With  the  help 
of  God,  I  will  try  to  deny  myself  in  this  matter, 
and  to  wait. 

"  I  suffered  much  before  I  left  Brussels.  I 
think,  however  long  I  live,  I  shall  not  forget 
what  the  parting  with  Monsieur  Heger  cost  me. 
It  grieved  me  so  much  to  grieve  him  who  has 
been  so  true,  kind,  disinterested  a  friend.  .  .  . 
Haworth  seems  such  a  lonely  quiet  spot,  buried 
away  from  the  world.  I  no  longer  regard  myself 
as  young,  indeed,  I  shall  soon  be  twenty-eight  ; 
and  it  seems  as  if  I  ought  to  be  working,  and 
braving  the  rough  realities  of  the  world,  as 
other  people  do  —  "  1 

Wait,  eager  Charlotte,  there  are  in  store  for 
you  enough  and  to  spare  of  rude  realities,  enough 
of  working  and  braving,  in  this  secluded  Ha- 
worth. No  need«to  go  forth  in  quest  of  dangers 
1  Mrs.  Gaskell. 


THE  RECALL. 


147 


and  trials.  The  air  is  growing  thick  with  gloom 
round  your  mountain  eyrie.  High  as  it  is, 
quiet,  lonely,  the  storms  of  heaven  and  the 
storms  of  earth  have  found  it  out,  to  break 
there. 


CHAPTER   X. 

THE    PROSPECTUSES. 

Gradually  Charlotte's  first  depression  wore 
away.  Long  discussions  with  Emily,  a,s  they 
took  their  walks  over  the  moors,  long  silent 
brooding  of  ways  and  means,  as  they  sat  to- 
gether in  the  parlor  making  shirts  for  Branwell, 
long  thinking,  brought  new  counsel.  She  went, 
moreover,  to  stay  with  her  friend  Ellen,  and  the 
change  helped  to  restore  her  weakened  health. 
She  writes  to  her  friend : 
"Dear  Nell,  "March  25. 

"  I  got  home  safely  and  was  not  too  much 
tired  on  arriving  at  Haworth.  I  feel  rather 
better  to-day  than  I  have  been,  and  in  time  I 
hope  to  regain  more  strength.  I  found  Emily 
and  papa  well,  and  a  letter  from  Branwell  inti- 
mating that  he  and  Anne  are  pretty  well  too. 
Emily  is  much  obliged  to  you  for  the  seeds  you 
sent.  She  wishes  to  know  if  the  Sicilian  pea 
and  the  crimson  cornflower  are  hardy  flowers, 
or  if  they  are  delicate  and  should  be  sown  in 
warm   and   sheltered    situations.     Write   to  me 


THE  PROSPECTUSES. 


149 


to-morrow  and  let  me  know  how  you  all  are,  if 
your  mother  continues  to  get  better.  .  .  . 

"  Good  morning,  dear  Nell,  I  shall  say  no 
more  to  you  at  present. 

"  C.  Bronte." 

"  Monday  morning. 

"  Our  poor  little  cat  has  been  ill  two  days  and 
is  just  dead.  It  is  piteous  to  see  even  an  animal 
lying  lifeless.     Emily  is  sorry." 

Side  by  side  with  all  these  lighter  cares  went 
on  the  schemes  for  the  school.  At  last  the  two 
sisters  determined  to  begin  as  soon  as  they  saw 
a  fair  chance  of  getting  pupils.  They  began 
the  search  in  good  earnest ;  but  fortunately, 
postponed  the  necessary  alterations  in  the  house 
until  they  had  the  secure  promise  of,  at  any  rate, 
three  or  four.  Then  their  demands  lessened 
as  day  by  day  that  chance  became  more  difficult 
and  fainter.  In  early  summer  Charlotte  writes: 
"  As  soon  as  I  can  get  a  chance  of  only  one 
pupil,  I  will  have  cards  of  terms  printed  and 
will  commence  the  repairs  necessary  in  the 
house.  I  wish  all  to  be  done  before  the  winter. 
I  think  of  fixing  the  board  and  English  educa- 
tion at  ^25  per  annum." 

Still  no  pupil  was  heard  of,  but  the  girls  went 
courageously  on,  writing  to  every  mother  of 
daughters  with  whom  they  could  claim  acquaint- 


rso 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


ance.  But,  alas,  it  was  the  case  with  one,  that 
her  children  were  already  at  school  in  Liverpool, 
with  another  that  her  child  had  just  been  prom- 
ised to  Miss  C,  with  a  third  that  she  thought 
the  undertaking  praiseworthy,  but  Haworth  was 
so  very  remote  a  spot.  In  vain  did  the  girls 
explain  that  from  some  points  of  view  the  re- 
tired situation  was  an  advantage ;  since,  had 
they  set  up  school  in  some  fashionable  place, 
they  would  have  had  house-rent  to  pay,  and 
could  not  possibly  have  offered  an  excellent 
education  for  £,2$  a  year.  Parents  are  an  ex- 
pectant people.  Still,  every  lady  promised  to 
recommend  the  school  to  mothers  less  squeam- 
ish, or  less  engaged ;  and,  knowing  how  well 
they  would  show  themselves  worthy  of  the 
chance,  once  they  had  obtained  it,  Charlotte 
and  Emily  took  heart  to  hope. 

The  holidays  arrived  and  still  nothing  was 
settled.  Anne  came  home  and  helped  in  the 
laying  of  schemes  and  writing  of  letters  —  but, 
alas,  Branwell  also  came  home,  irritable,  extrav- 
agant, wildly  gay,  or  gloomily  moping.  His 
sisters  could  no  longer  blind  themselves  to  the 
fact  that  he  drank,  drank  habitually,  to  excess. 
And  Anne  had  fears  —  vague,  terrible,  forebod- 
ing—  which  she  could  not  altogether  make  plain. 

By  this  time  they  had  raised  the  charge  to 
^35,  considering,  perhaps,  that  their  first  offer 


THE  PROSPECTUSES.  1^1 

had  been  so  low  as  to  discredit  their  attempt. 
But  still  they  got  no  favorable  answers.  It  was 
hard,  for  the  girls  had  not  been  chary  of  time, 
money,  or  trouble  to  fit  themselves  for  their 
occupation.  Looking  round  they  could  count 
up  many  schoolmistresses  far  less  thoroughly 
equipped.     Only  the  Brontes  had  no  interest. 

Meanwhile  Branwell  amused  himself  as  best 
he  could.  There  was  always  the  "  Black  Bull," 
with  its  admiring  circle  of  drink-fellows,  and  the 
girls  who  admired  Patrick's  courteous  bow  and 
Patrick's  winning  smile.  Good  people  all,  who 
little  dreamed  how  much  vice,  how  much  misery, 
they  were  encouraging  by  their  approbation.  Mr. 
Grundy,  too,  came  over  now  and  then  to  see  his 
old  friend.  "I  knew  them  all,"  he  says  —  "the 
father,  upright,  handsome,  distantly  courteous, 
white-haired,  tall  ;  knowing  me  as  his  son's 
friend,  he  would  treat  me  in  the  Grandisonian 
fashion,  coming  himself  down  to  the  little  inn  to 
invite  me,  a  boy,  up  to  his  house,  where  I  would 
be  coldly  uncomfortable  until  I  could  escape  with 
Patrick  Branwell  to  the  moors.  The  daughters 
—  distant  and  distrait,  large  of  nose,  small  of 
figure,  red  of  hair  (!),  prominent  of  spectacles  ; 
showing  great  intellectual  development,  but  with 
eyes  constantly  cast  down,  very  silent,  painfully 
retiring.  This  was  about  the  time  of  their  first 
literary  adventures,  say  1843  or  1844."  1 

1  Pictures  of  the  Past. 


152 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


But  of  literary  adventure  there  was  at  present 
little  thought.  The  school  still  occupied  their 
thoughts  and  dreams.  At  last,  no  pupil  coming 
forward,  some  cards  of  terms  were  printed  and 
given  for  distribution  to  the  friends  of  Charlotte 
and  Anne  ;  Emily  had  no  friends. 

There  are  none  left  of  them,  those  pitiful 
cards  of  terms  never  granted  ;  records  of  such 
unfruitful  hopes.  They  have  fitly  vanished,  like 
the  ghosts  of  children  never  born  ;  and  quicker 
still  to  vanish  was  the  dream  that  called  them 
forth.  The  weeks  went  on,  and  every  week  of 
seven  letterless  mornings,  every  week  of  seven 
anxious  nights,  made  the  sisters  more  fully  aware 
that  notice  and  employment  would  not  come  to 
them  in  the  way  they  had  dreamed  ;  made  them 
think  it  well  that  Branwell's  home  should  not  be 
the  dwelling  of  innocent  children. 

Anne  went  back  to  her  work,  leaving  the  fu- 
ture as  uncertain  as  before. 

In  October  Charlotte,  always  the  spokes- 
woman, writes  again  to  her  friend  and  diligent 
helper  in  this  matter : 

"Dear  Nell, 

"  I,  Emily,  and  Anne  are  truly  obliged  to  you 
for  the  efforts  you  have  made  in  our  behalf  ;  and 
if  you  have  not  been  successful  you  are  only 
like  ourselves.     Every  one  wishes  us  well ;  but 


THE  PROSPECTUSES. 


153 


there  are  no  pupils  to  be  had.  We  have  no 
present  intention,  however,  of  breaking  our 
hearts  on  the  subject ;  still  less  of  feeling  mor- 
tified at  our  defeat.  The  effort  must  be  bene- 
ficial, whatever  the  result  may  be,  because  it 
teaches  us  experience  and  an  additional  knowl- 
edge of  this  world. 

"  I  send  you  two  additional  circulars,  and  will 
send  you  two  more,  if  you  desire  it,  when  I  write 
again." 

Those  four  circulars  also  came  to  nothing ;  it 
was  now  more  than  six  months  since  the  three 
sisters  had  begun  their  earnest  search  for  pupils  : 
more  than  three  years  since  they  had  taken  for 
the  ruling  aim  of  their  endeavors  the  formation 
of  this  little  school.  Not  one  pupil  could  they 
secure  ;  not  one  promise.  At  last  they  knew 
that  they  were  beaten. 

In  November  Charlotte  writes  again  to  Ellen  : 

"  We  have  made  no  alterations  yet  in  our 
house.  It  would  be  folly  to  do  so  while  there 
is  so  little  likelihood  of  our  ever  getting  pupils. 
I  fear  you  are  giving  yourself  too  much  trouble 
on  our  account. 

"  Depend  on  it,  if  you  were  to  persuade  a  mama 
to  bring  her  child  to  Haworth,  the  aspect  of  the 
place  would  frighten  her,  and  she  would  probably 
take  the  dear  girl  back  with  her  instanter.  We 
are  glad  that  we  have  made  the  attempt,  and  we 


154 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


will  not  be  cast  down  because  it  has  not  suc- 
ceeded." 1 

There  was  no  more  to  be  said,  only  to  put 
carefully  by,  as  one  puts  by  the  thoughts  of  an 
interrupted  marriage,  all  the  dreams  that  had 
filled  so  many  months ;  only  to  lay  aside  in  a 
drawer,  as  one  lays  aside  the  long-sewn-at  gar- 
ments of  a  still-born  child,  the  plans  drawn  out 
for  the  builder,  the  printed  cards,  the  lists  of 
books  to  get ;  only  to  face  again  a  future  of 
separate  toil  among  strangers,  to  renounce  the 
vision  of  a  home  together. 

1  Mrs.  Gaskell. 


CHAPTER   XI. 


BRANWELLS     FALL. 


As  the  spring  grew  upon  the  moors,  dappling 
them  with  fresh  verdant  shoots,  clearing  the  sky 
overhead,  loosening  the  winds  to  rush  across 
them  ;  as  the  beautiful  season  grew  ripe  in 
Haworth,  every  one  of  its  days  made  clearer 
to  the  two  anxious  women  waiting  there  in  what 
shape  their  blurred  foreboding  would  come  true 
at  last.     They  seldom  spoke  of  Branwell  now. 

It  was  a  hard  and  anxious  time,  ever  expectant 
of  an  evil  just  at  hand.  Minor  troubles,  too, 
gathered  round  this  shapeless  boded  grief :  Mr. 
Bronte  was  growing  blind  ;  Charlotte,  ever  ner- 
vous, feared  the  same  fate,  and  could  do  but 
little  sewing  with  her  weak,  cherished  eyesight. 
Anne's  letters  told  of  health  worn  out  by  con- 
stant, agonizing  suspicion.  It  was  Emily,  that 
strong  bearer  of  burdens,  on  whom  the  largest 
share  of  work  was  laid. 

Charlotte  grew  really  weak  as  the  summer 
came.  Her  sensitive,  vehement  nature  felt  anx- 
iety as  a  physical  pain.    She  was  constantly  with 


i56 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


her  father  ;  her  spirit  sank  with  his,  as  month  by 
month  his  sight  grew  sensibly  weaker.  The  old 
man,  to  whom  his  own  importance  was  so  dear, 
suffered  keenly,  indeed,  from  the  fear  of  actual 
blindness,  and  more  from  the  horror  of  depen- 
dence than  from  the  dread  of  pain  or  privation. 
"  He  fears  he  will  be  nothing  in  the  parish," 
says  sorrowful  Charlotte.  And  as  her  father, 
never  impatient,  never  peevish,  became  more 
deeply  cast  down  and  anxious,  she,  too,  became 
nervous  and  fearful ;  she,  too,  dejected. 

At  last,  when  June  came  and  brought  no 
brightness  to  that  gray  old  house,  with  the  in- 
visible shadow  ever  hovering  above  it,  Charlotte 
was  persuaded  to  seek  rest  and  change  in  the 
home  of  her  friend  near  Leeds. 

Anne  was  home  now;  she  had  come  back 
ill,  miserable.  She  had  suspicions  that  made 
her  feel  herself  degraded,  pure  soul,  concerning 
her  brother's  relation  with  her  employer's  wife. 
Many  letters  had  passed  between  them,  through 
her  hands  too.  Too  often  had  she  heard  her 
unthinking  little  pupils  threaten  their  mother 
into  more  than  customary  indulgence,  saying : 
"  Unless  you  do  as  we  wish,  we  shall  tell  papa 
about  Mr.  Bronte."  The  poor  girl  felt  herself  an 
involuntary  accomplice  to  that  treachery,  that 
deceit. 

To  lie  down  at  night  under  the  roof,  to  break 


BRANWELVS  FALL. 


157 


by  day  the  bread  of  the  good,  sick,  bedridden 
man,  whose  honor,  she  could  not  but  fear,  was 
in  jeopardy  from  her  own  brother,  such  dire 
strain  was  too  great  for  that  frail,  dejected  na- 
ture. And  yet  to  say  openly  to  herself  that 
Bran  well  had  committed  this  disgrace  —  it  was 
impossible.  Rather  must  her  suspicions  be  the 
morbid  promptings  of  a  diseased  mind.  She 
was  wicked  to  have  felt  them.  Poor,  gentle 
Anne,  sweet,  "prim,  little  body,"  such  scenes, 
such  unhallowed  vicinities  of  lust,  were  not  for 
you !  At  last  sickness  came  and  set  her  free. 
She  went  home. 

Home,  with  its  constant  labor,  pure  air  of 
good  works ;  home,  with  its  sickness  and  love, 
its  dread  for  others  and  noble  sacrifice  of  self ; 
how  welcome  was  it  to  her  wounded  spirit ! 
And  yet  this  infinitely  lighter  torment  was 
wearing  Charlotte  out.  They  persuaded  her  to 
go  away,  and,  when  she  had  yielded,  strove  to 
keep  her  away. 

Emily  writes  to  Ellen  in  July : 

"  Dear  Miss  Nussey,  —  If  you  have  set  your 
heart  on  Charlotte  staying  another  week,  she 
has  our  united  consent.  I,  for  one,  will  take 
everything  easy  on  Sunday.  I  am  glad  she  is 
enjoying  herself;  let  her  make  the  most  of  the 
next   seven   days  to  return   stout   and   hearty. 


^8  EMILY  BRONTE. 

Love  to  her  and  you  from  Anne  and  myself, 
and  tell  her  all  are  well  at  home.  —  Yours, 

"  Emily  Bronte." 

Charlotte  stayed  the  extra  week,  benefiting 
largely  thereby.  She  started  for  home,  and 
enjoyed  her  journey,  for  she  travelled  with  a 
French  gentleman,  and  talked  again  with  delight 
the  sweet  language  which  had  left  such  linger- 
ing echoes  in  her  memory,  which  forbade  her  to 
feel  quite  contented  any  more  in  her  secluded 
Yorkshire  home.  Slight  as  it  was,  the  little  ex- 
citement did  her  good  ;  feeling  brave  and  ready 
to  face  and  fight  with  a  legion  of  shadows,  she 
reached  the  gate  of  her  own  home,  went  in. 
Branwell  was  there. 

He  had  been  sent  home  a  day  or  two  before, 
apparently  for  a  holiday.  He  must  have  known 
that  some  discovery  had  been  made  at  last ;  he 
must  have  felt  he  never  would  return.  Anne, 
too,  must  have  had  some  misgivings  ;  yet  the 
worst  was  not  known  yet.  Emily,  at  least,  could 
not  guess  it.  Not  for  long  this  truce  with  open 
disgrace.  The  very  day  of  Charlotte's  return  a 
letter  had  come  for  Branwell  from  his  employer. 
All  had  been  found  out.  This  letter  commanded 
Branwell  never  to  see  again  the  mother  of  the 
children  under  his  care,  never  set  foot  in  her 
home,  never  write  or  speak  to  her.     Branwell, 


BRANWELVS  FALL. 


159 


who  loved  her  passionately,  had  in  that  mo- 
ment no  thought  for  the  shame,  the  black 
disgrace,  he  had  brought  on  his  father's  house. 
He  stormed,  raved,  swore  he  could  not  live 
without  her ;  cried  out  against  her  next  for 
staying  with  her  husband.  Then  prayed  the 
sick  man  might  die  soon  ;  they  would  yet  be 
happy.     Ah,  he  would  never  see  her  again  ! 

A  strange  scene  in  the  quiet  parlor  of  a 
country  vicarage,  this  anguish  of  guilty  love, 
these  revulsions  from  shameful  ecstasy  to 
shameful  despair.  Branwell  raved  on,  delirious, 
agonized ;  and  the  blind  father  listened,  sick  at 
heart,  maybe  self-reproachful ;  and  the  gentle 
sister  listened,  shuddering,  as  if  she  saw  hell 
lying  open  at  her  feet.  Emily  listened,  too,  in- 
dignant at  the  treachery,  horrified  at  the  shame ; 
yet  with  an  immense  pity  in  her  fierce  and  lov- 
ing breast. 

To  this  scene  Charlotte  entered. 

Charlotte,  with  her  vehement  sense  of  right ; 
Charlotte,  with  her  sturdy  indignation  ;  when 
she  at  last  understood  the  whole  guilty  cor- 
rupted passion  that  had  wrecked  two  homes,  she 
turned  away  with  something  in  her  heart  sud- 
denly stiffened,  dead.  It  was  her  passionate  love 
for  this  shameful,  erring  brother,  once  as  dear 
to  her  as  her  own  soul.  Yet  she  was  very  pa- 
tient. She  writes  to  a  friend  quietly  and  with- 
out too  much  disdain  : 


160  EMILY  BRONTE. 

"  We  have  had  sad  work  with  Branwell.  He 
thought  of  nothing  but  stunning  or  drowning 
his  agony  of  mind"  (in  what  fashion,  the  reader 
knows  ere  now),  "  no  one  in  this  house  could 
have  rest,  and  at  last  we  have  been  obliged  to 
send  him  from  home  for  a  week,  with  some  one 
to  look  after  him.  He  has  written  to  me  this 
morning,  expressing  some  sense  of  contrition 
.  .  .  but  as  long  as  he  remains  at  home,  I 
scarce  dare  hope  for  peace  in  the  house.  We 
must  all,  I  fear,  prepare  for  a  season  of  distress 
and  disquietude."  1 

A  weary  and  a  hopeless  time.  Branwell  came 
back,  better  in  body,  but  in  nowise  holier  in 
mind.  His  one  hope  was  that  his  enemy  might 
die,  die  soon,  and  that  things  might  be  as  they 
had  been  before.  No  thought  of  repentance. 
What  money  he  had,  he  spent  in  gin  or  opium, 
anything  to  deaden  recollection.  A  woman  still 
lives  at  Haworth,  who  used  to  help  in  the  house- 
work at  the  "  Black  Bull."  She  still  remembers 
how,  in  the  early  morning,  pale,  red-eyed,  he 
would  come  into  the  passage  of  the  inn,  with 
his  beautiful  bow  and  sweep  of  the  lifted  hat, 
with  his  courteous  smile  and  ready  "Good  morn- 
ing, Anne ! "  Then  he  would  turn  to  the  bar, 
and  feeling  in  his  pockets  for  what  small  moneys 
he  might  have — sixpence,  eightpence,  tenpence, 

i  Mrs.  Gaskell. 


BRANWELUS  FALL.  i^i 

as  the  case  might  be  —  he  would  order  so  much 
gin  and  sit  there  drinking  till  it  was  all  gone, 
then  still  sit  there  silent;  or  sometimes  he  would 
passionately  speak  of  the  woman  he  loved,  of 
her  beauty,  sweetness,  of  how  he  longed  to  see 
her  again  ;  he  loved  to  speak  of  her  even  to  a 
dog ;  he  would  talk  of  her  by  the  hour  to  his 
dog.  Yet  —  lest  we  pity  this  real  despair  —  let 
us  glance  at  one  of  this  man's  letters.  How 
could  such  vulgar  weakness,  such  corrupt  and 
loathsome  sentimentality,  such  maudlin  Micaw- 
ber-penitence,  yet  feel  so  much  !  No  easy  task 
to  judge  of  a  misery  too  perverse  for  pity,  too 
sincere  for  absolute  contempt. 

It  is  again  to  Mr.  Grundy  that  he  writes : 
"  Since  I  last  shook  hands  with  you  in  Halifax, 
two  summers  ago,  my  life,  till  lately,  has  been 
one  of  apparent  happiness  and  indulgence.  You 
will  ask  —  'Why  does  he  complain  then?'  I 
can  only  reply  by  showing  the  undercurrent  of 
distress  which  bore  my  bark  to  a  whirlpool,  de- 
spite the  surface-waves  of  life  that  seemed  float- 
ing me  to  peace.  In  a  letter  begun  in  the  spring 
of  1843"  (s*Ci  ^45  ?)  "and  never  finished,  ow- 
ing to  incessant  attacks  of  illness,  I  tried  to  tell 
you  that  I  was  tutor  to  the  son  of  a  wealthy 
gentleman  whose  wife  is  sister  to  the  wife  of 

,  an  M.P.,  and  the   cousin   of  Lord  . 

This   lady  (though   her  husband  detested  me) 


1 62  EMILY  BRONTE. 

showed  me  a  degree  of  kindness  which,  when 
I  was  deeply  grieved  one  day  at  her  husband's 
conduct,  ripened  into  declarations  of  more  than 
ordinary  feeling.  My  admiration  of  her  mental 
and  personal  attractions,  my  knowledge  of 
her  unselfish  sincerity,  her  sweet  temper,  and 
unwearied  care  for  others,  with  but  unrequited 
return  where  most  should  have  been  given  .  .  . 
although  she  is  seventeen  years  my  senior,  all 
combined  to  an  attachment  on  my  part,  and  led 
to  reciprocations  which  I  had  little  looked  for. 
Three  months  since  I  received  a  furious  letter 
from  my  employer,  threatening  to  shoot  me  if  I 
returned  from  my  vacation  which  I  was  passing 
at  home ;  and  letters  from  her  lady's-maid  and 
physician  informed  me  of  the  outbreak,  only 
checked  by  her  firm  courage  and  resolution  that 
whatever  harm  came  to  her  none  should  come 
to  me.  ...  I  have  lain  for  nine  long  weeks, 
utterly  shattered  in  body  and  broken  down  in 
mind.  The  probability  of  her  becoming  free  to 
give  me  herself  and  estate  never  rose  to  drive 
away  the  prospect  of  her  decline  under  her 
present  grief.  I  dreaded,  too,  the  wreck  of  my 
mind  and  body,  which  —  God  knows  —  during  a 
short  life  have  been  most  severely  tried.  Eleven 
continuous  nights  of  sleepless  horror  reduced 
me  to  almost  blindness,  and  being  taken  into 
Wales  to  recover,  the  sweet  scenery,  the  sea, 


BRANIVELUS  FALL.  163 

the  sound  of  music,  caused  me  fits  of  unspeak- 
able distress.  You  will  say  :  '  What  a  fool ! ' 
But  if  you  knew  the  many  causes  that  I  have 
for  sorrow,  which  I  cannot  even  hint  at  here,  you 
would  perhaps  pity  as  well  as  blame.  At  the 
kind  request  of  Mr.  Macaulay  and  Mr.  Baines, 
I  have  striven  to  arouse  my  mind  by  writing 
something  worthy  of  being  read,  but  I  really 
cannot  do  so.  Of  course  you  will  despise  the 
writer  of  all  this.  I  can  only  answer  that  the 
writer  does  the  same  and  would  not  wish  to  live, 
if  he  did  not  hope  that  work  and  change  may 
yet  restore  him. 

"Apologizing  sincerely  for  what  seems  like 
whining  egotism,  and  hardly  daring  to  hint  about 
days  when,  in  your  company,  I  could  sometimes 
sink  the  thoughts  which  '  remind  me  of  departed 
days,'  I  fear  'departed  never  to  return,'  I  re- 
main, &c."  * 

Unhappy  Branwell !  some  consolation  he  de- 
rives in  his  utmost  sorrow  from  the  fact  that  the 
lady  of  his  love  can  employ  her  own  lady's-maid 
and  physician  to  write  letters  to  her  exiled  lover. 
It  is  clear  that  his  pride  is  gratified  by  this  ir- 
regular association  with  a  lord.  He  can  afford 
to  wait,  stupefied  with  drink  and  drugs,  till 
that  happy  time  shall  come  when  he  can  step 
forward  and  claim  "  herself  and  estate,"  hence- 

1  Pictures  of  the  Past. 


164  EMILY  BRONTE. 

forward  Branwell  Bronte,  Esq.,  J. P.,  and  a  person 
of  position  in  the  county.  Such  paradisal  future 
dawns  above  this  present  purgatory  of  pains  and 
confusion. 

That  phrase  concerning  "  herself  and  estate  " 
is  peculiarly  apocalyptic.  It  sheds  a  quite  new 
light  upon  a  fact  which,  in  Mrs.  Gaskell's  time, 
was  regarded  as  a  proof  that  some  remains  of 
conscience  still  stirred  within  this  miserable  fel- 
low. Some  months  after  his  dismissal,  towards 
the  end  of  this  unhappy  year  of  1845,  ^e  met  this 
lady  at  Harrogate  by  appointment.  It  is  said 
that  she  proposed  a  flight  together,  ready  to 
forfeit  all  her  grandeur.  It  was  Branwell  who 
advised  patience,  and  a  little  longer  waiting. 
Maybe,  though  she  herself  was  dear,  "although 
seventeen  years  my  senior,"  "  herself  and  estate  " 
was  estimably  dearer. 

And  yet  he  was  in  earnest,  yet  it  was  a  ques- 
tion of  life  and  death,  of  heaven  or  hell,  with 
him.  If  he  could  not  have  her,  he  would  have 
nothing.  He  would  ruin  himself  and  all  he  could. 
Most  like,  in  this  rage  of  vain  despair,  some  pas- 
sionate baby  that  shrieks,  and  hits,  and  tears, 
convulsed  because  it  may  not  have  the  moon. 

Small  wonder  that  Charlotte's  coldness,  aggra- 
vated by  continual  outrage  on  Branwell's  part, 
gradually  became  contempt  and  silence.  In  pro- 
portion as  she  had  exulted  in  this  brother,  hoped 


BRANWELUS  FALL.  ^5 

all  for  him,  did  she  now  shrink  from  him,  bitterly- 
chill  at  heart. 

"  I  begin  to  fear,"  she  says,  the  once  ambitious 
sister,  "  that  he  has  rendered  himself  incapable 
of  filling  any  respectable  station  in  life."  She 
cannot  ask  Ellen  to  come  to  see  her,  because  he 
is  in  the  house.  "And  while  he  is  here,  you 
shall  not  come.  I  am  more  confirmed  in  that 
resolution  the  more  I  see  of  him.  I  wish  I  could 
say  one  word  to  you  in  his  favor,  but  I  cannot. 
I  will  hold  my  tongue."  x 

For  some  while  she  hoped  that  the  crisis  would 
pass,  and  that  then  —  no  matter  how  humbly, 
the  more  obscurely  the  better  —  he  would  at 
least  earn  honest  bread  away  from  home.  Such 
was  not  his  intention.  He  professed  to  be  too  ill 
to  leave  Haworth  ;  and  ill,  no  doubt,  he  was,  from 
continual  eating  of  opium  and  daily  drinking  of 
drams.  He  stuck  to  his  comfortable  quarters, 
to  the  "Black  Bull"  just  across  the  churchyard, 
heedless  of  what  discomfort  he  gave  to  others. 
"  Branwell  offers  no  prospect  of  hope,"  says  Char- 
lotte, again.  "  How  can  we  be  more  comfortable 
so  long  as  Branwell  stays  at  home  and  degener- 
ates instead  of  improving  ?  It  has  been  inti- 
mated that  he  would  be  received  again  where  he 
was  formerly  stationed  if  he  would  behave  more 
steadily,  but  he  refuses  to  make  the  effort.     He 

1  Mrs.  Gaskell. 


l66  EMILY  BRONTE. 

will  not  work,  and  at  home  he  is  a  drain  on  every 
resource,  an  impediment  to  all  happiness.  But 
there's  no  use  in  complaining — " 

Small  use  indeed  ;  yet  once  more  she  forced 
herself  to  make  the  hopeless  effort,  after  some 
more  than  customary  outbreak  of  the  man  who 
was  drinking  himself  into  madness  and  ruin. 
She  writes  in  the  March  of  1846  to  her  friend 
and  comforter,  Ellen  : 

"  I  went  into  the  room  where  Branwell  was,  to 
speak  to  him,  about  a  hour  after  I  got  home ;  it 
was  very  forced  work  to  address  him.  I  might 
have  spared  myself  the  trouble,  as  he  took  no 
notice,  and  made  no  reply ;  he  was  stupefied. 
My  fears  were  not  vain.  I  hear  that  he  got  a 
sovereign  while  I  have  been  away,  under  pre- 
tence of  paying  a  pressing  debt ;  he  went  imme- 
diately and  changed  it  at  a  public-house,  and  has 
employed  it  as  was  to  be  expected  .  .  .  con- 
cluded her  account  by  saying  that  he  was  a 
'  hopeless  being.'  It  is  too  true.  In  his  present 
state  it  is  scarcely  possible  to  stay  in  the  room 
where  he  is."  x 

It  must  be  about  that  time  that  she  forever 
gave  up  expostulation  or  complaint  in  this  mat- 
ter. "  I  will  hold  my  tongue,"  she  had  said,  and 
she  kept  her  word.  For  more  than  two  years 
she  held  an  utter  silence  to  him  ;  living  under 

1  Mrs.  Gaskell. 


BRANWELLS  FALL.  167 

the  same  roof,  witnessing  day  by  clay  his  ever- 
deepening  degradation,  no  syllable  crossed  her 
lips  to  him.  Since  she  could  not  (for  the  sake 
of  those  she  loved  and  might  comfort)  refuse  the 
loathsome  daily  touch  and  presence  of  sin,  she 
endured  it,  but  would  have  no  fellowship  there- 
with. She  had  no  right  over  it,  it  none  over 
her.  She  looked  on  speechless  ;  that  man  was 
dead  to  her. 

Anne,  in  whom  the  fibre  of  indignation  was 
less  strong,  followed  less  sternly  in  her  sister's 
wake. 

"She  had,"  says  Charlotte,  in  her  '  Memoir,' 
"  in  the  course  of  her  life  been  called  upon  to 
contemplate,  near  at  hand  and  for  a  long  time, 
the  terrible  effects  of  talents  misused  and  facul- 
ties abused  ;  hers  was  naturally  a  sensitive,  re- 
served, and  dejected  nature  ;  what  she  saw  went 
very  deeply  into  her  mind ;  it  did  her  harm." 

The  spectacle  of  this  harm,  coming  undeserved 
to  so  dear,  frail,  and  innocent  a  creature,  absorbed 
all  Charlotte's  pity.  There  was  none  left  for 
Bran  well. 

But  there  was  one  woman's  heart  strong 
enough  in  its  compassion  to  bear  the  daily  dis- 
gusts, weaknesses,  sins  of  Branwell's  life,  and 
yet  persist  in  aid  and  affection.  Night  after 
night,  when  Mr.  Bronte  was  in  bed,  when  Anne 
and  Charlotte  had  gone  up-stairs  to  their  room, 


1 68  EMILY  BRONTE. 

Emily  still  sat  up,  waiting.  She  often  had  very 
long  to  wait  in  the  silent  house  before  the  stag- 
gering tread,  the  muttered  oath,  the  fumbling 
hand  at  the  door,  bade  her  rouse  herself  from 
her  sad  thoughts  and  rise  to  let  in  the  prodigal, 
and  lead  him  in  safety  to  his  rest.  But  she  never 
wearied  in  her  kindness.  In  that  silent  home,  it 
was  the  silent  Emily  who  had  ever  a  cheering 
word  for  Branwell ;  it  was  Emily  who  still  re- 
membered that  he  was  her  brother,  without  that 
remembrance  freezing  her  heart  to  numbness. 
She  still  hoped  to  win  him  back  by  love  ;  and 
the  very  force  and  sincerity  of  his  guilty  passion 
(an  additional  horror  and  sin  in  her  sisters'  eyes) 
was  a  claim  on  Emily,  ever  sympathetic  to  violent 
feeling.  Thus  it  was  she  who,  more  than  the 
others,  became  familiarized  with  the  agony,  and 
doubts,  and  shame  of  that  tormented  soul  ;  and 
if,  in  her  little  knowledge  of  the  world,  she  im- 
agined such  wrested  passions  to  be  natural,  it  is 
not  upon  her,  of  a  certainty,  that  the  blame  of 
her  pity  shall  be  laid. 

As  the  time  went  on,  and  Branwell  grew  worse 
and  wilder,  it  was  well  for  the  lonely  watcher 
that  she  was  strong.  At  last  he  grew  ill,  and 
would  be  content  to  go  to  bed  early,  and  lie  there 
half-stupefied  with  opium  and  drink.  One  such 
night,  their  father  and  Branwell  being  in  bed,  the 
sisters  came  up-stairs  to  sleep.     Emily  had  gone 


BRAN  WELL'S  FALL.  169 

on  first  into  the  little  passage  room  where  she 
still  slept,  when  Charlotte,  passing  Branwell's 
partly  opened  door,  saw  a  strange  bright  flare 
inside. 

"  Oh,  Emily ! "  she  cried,  "  the  house  is  on 
fire !  " 

Emily  came  out,  her  fingers  at  her  lips.  She 
had  remembered  her  father's  great  horror  of  fire ; 
it  was  the  one  dread  of  a  brave  man ;  he  would 
have  no  muslin  curtains,  no  light  dresses  in  his 
house.  She  came  out  silently  and  saw  the  flame ; 
then,  very  white  and  determined,  dashed  from 
her  room  down-stairs  into  the  passage,  where 
every  night  full  pails  of  water  stood.  One  in 
each  hand,  she  came  up-stairs.  Anne,  Charlotte, 
the  young  servant,  shrinking  against  the  wall, 
huddled  together  in  amazed  horror  —  Emily 
went  straight  on  and  entered  the  blazing  room. 
In  a  short  while  the  bright  light  ceased  to  flare. 
Fortunately  the  flame  had  not  reached  the  wood- 
work :  drunken  Branwell,  turning  in  his  bed, 
must  have  upset  the  light  on  to  his  sheets,  for 
they  and  the  bed  were  all  on  fire,  and  he  uncon- 
scious in  the  midst  when  Emily  went  in,  even 
as  Jane  Eyre  found  Mr.  Rochester.  But  it  was 
no  reasonable,  thankful  human  creature  with 
whom  Emily  had  to  deal.  After  a  few  long  mo- 
ments, those  still  standing  in  the  passage  saw 
her  stagger  out,  white,  with  singed  clothes,  half- 


170  EMILY  BRONTE: 

carrying  in  her  arms,  half-dragging,  her  besotted 
brother.  She  placed  him  in  her  bed,  and  took 
away  the  light;  then  assuring  the  hysterical  girls 
that  there  could  be  no  further  danger,  she  bade 
them  go  and  rest  —  but  where  she  slept  herself 
that  night  no  one  remembers  now. 

It  must  be  very  soon  after  this  that  Branwell 
began  to  sleep  in  his  father's  room.  The  old 
man,  courageous  enough,  and  conceiving  that  his 
presence  might  be  some  slight  restraint  on  the 
drunken  furies  of  his  unhappy  son,  persisted  in 
this  arrangement,  though  often  enough  the  girls 
begged  him  to  relinquish  it,  knowing  well  enough 
what  risk  of  life  he  ran.  Not  infrequently  Bran- 
well  would  declare  that  either  he  or  his  father 
should  be  dead  before  the  morning ;  and  well 
might  it  happen  that  in  his  insensate  delirium  he 
should  murder  the  blind  old  man. 

"  The  sisters  often  listened  for  the  report  of  a 
pistol  in  the  dead  of  the  night,  till  watchful  eye 
and  hearkening  ear  grew  heavy  and  dull  with 
the  perpetual  strain  upon  their  nerves.  In  the 
mornings  young  Bronte  would  saunter  out,  say- 
ing, with  a  drunkard's  incontinence  of  speech, 
'  The  poor  old  man  and  I  have  had  a  terrible 
night  of  it.  He  does  his  best  —  the  poor  old 
man  !  —  but  it's  all  over  with  me'  "  (whimpering) 
"  '  it's  her  fault,  her  fault.'  "  > 

1  Mrs.  Gaskell. 


BRANWELLS  FALL. 


171 


And  in  such  fatal  progress  two  years  went  on, 
bringing  the  suffering  in  that  house  ever  lower, 
ever  deeper,  sinking  it  day  by  day  from  bad  to 
worse. 


CHAPTER   XII. 


WRITING    POETRY. 


While  Emily  Bronte's  hands  were  full  of  trivial 
labor,  while  her  heart  was  buried  with  its  charge 
of  shame  and  sorrow,  think  not  that  her  mind 
was  more  at  rest.  She  had  always  used  her  lei- 
sure to  study  or  create ;  and  the  dreariness  of 
existence  made  this  inner  life  of  hers  doubly 
precious  now.  There  is  a  tiny  copy  of  the 
'  Poems '  of  Ellis,  Currer,  and  Acton  Bell,  which 
was  Emily's  own,  marked  with  her  name  and 
with  the  date  of  every  poem  carefully  written 
under  its  title,  in  her  own  cramped  and  tidy  writ- 
ing. It  has  been  of  great  use  to  me  in  classify- 
ing the  order  of  these  poems,  chiefly  hymns  to 
imagination,  Emily's  "  Comforter,"  her  "  Fairy- 
love;"  beseeching  her  to  light  such  a  light  in 
the  soul  that  the  dull  clouds  of  earthly  skies  may 
seem  of  scant  significance. 

The  light  that  should  be  lit  was  indeed  of 
supernatural  brightness  ;  a  flame  from  under  the 
earth  ;  a  flame  of  lightning  from  the  skies ;  a 
beacon  of  awful  warning.     Although  so  much  is 


WRITING  POETRY.  173 

scarcely  evident  in  these  early  poems,  gleaming 
with  fantastic  glow-worm  fires,  fairy  prettinesses, 
or  burning  as  solemnly  and  pale  as  tapers  lit  in 
daylight  round  a  bier,  yet,  in  whatever  shape, 
"  the  light  that  never  was  on  sea  or  land,"  the 
strange  transfiguring  shine  of  imagination,  is 
present  there. 

No  one  in  the  house  ever  saw  what  things 
Emily  wrote  in  the  moments  of  pause  from  her 
pastry-making,  in  those  brief  sittings  under  the 
currants,  in  those  long  and  lonely  watches  for 
her  drunken  brother.  She  did  not  write  to  be 
read,  but  only  to  relieve  a  burdened  heart.  "  One 
day,"  writes  Charlotte  in  1850,  recollecting  the 
near,  vanished  past,  "  one  day  in  the  autumn  of 
1845,  I  accidentally  lighted  on  a  manuscript  vol- 
ume of  verse  in  my  sister  Emily's  handwriting. 
Of  course  I  was  not  surprised,  knowing  that  she 
could  and  did  write  verse.  I  looked  it  over,  and 
something  more  than  surprise  seized  me,  —  a 
deep  conviction  that  these  were  not  common 
effusions,  not  at  all  like  the  poetry  women  gener- 
ally write.  I  thought  them  condensed  and  terse, 
vigorous  and  genuine.  To  my  ear,  they  had 
also  a  peculiar  music,  wild,  melancholy,  and 
elevating." 

Very  true ;  these  poems  with  their  surplus  of 
imagination,  their  instinctive  music  and  irregular 
Tightness  of  form,  their  sweeping  impressiveness, 


174 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


effects  of  landscape,  their  scant  allusions  to  dog- 
ma or  perfidious  man,  are,  indeed,  not  at  all  like 
the  poetry  women  generally  write.  The  hand 
that  painted  this  single  line, 

"  The  dim  moon  struggling  in  the  sky," 

should  have  shaken  hands  with  Coleridge.  The 
voice  might  have  sung  in  concert  with  Blake 
that  sang  this  single  bit  of  a  song : 

"  Hope  was  but  a  timid  friend  ; 
She  sat  without  the  grated  den, 
Watching  how  my  fate  would  tend, 
Even  as  selfish-hearted  men. 

"  She  was  cruel  in  her  fear ; 

Through  the  bars,  one  dreary  day, 
I  looked  out  to  see  her  there, 
And  she  turned  her  face  away  !  " 

Had  the  poem  ended  here  it  would  have  been 
perfect,  but  it  and  many  more  of  these  lyrics 
have  the  uncertainty  of  close  that  usually  marks 
early  work.  Often  incoherent,  too,  the  pictures 
of  a  dream  rapidly  succeeding  each  other  with- 
out logical  connection  ;  yet  scarcely  marred  by 
the  incoherence,  since  the  effect  they  seek  to 
produce  is  not  an  emotion,  not  a  conviction,  but 
an  impression  of  beauty,  or  horror,  or  ecstasy. 
The  uncertain  outlines  are  bathed  in  a  vague 
golden  air  of  imagination,  and  are  shown  to  us 
with  the  magic  touch  of  a  Coleridge,  a  Leopardi 


WRITING  POETRY. 


175 


—  the  touch  which  gives  a  mood,  a  scene,  with 
scarce  an  obvious  detail  of  either  mood  or  scene. 
We  may  not  understand  the  purport  of  the  song, 
we  understand  the  feeling  that  prompted  the 
song,  as,  having  done  with  reading  '  Kubla 
Khan,'  there  remains  in  our  mind,  not  the  pic- 
tured vision  of  palace  or  dancer,  but  a  personal 
participation  in  Coleridge's  heightened  fancy,  a 
setting-on  of  reverie,  an  impression. 

Read  this  poem,  written  in  October,  1845  — 

THE    PHILOSOPHER. 

"Enough  of  thought,  philosopher, 
Too  long  hast  thou  been  dreaming 
Unlightened,  in  this  chamber  drear, 
"While  summer's  sun  is  beaming  I 
Space-sweeping  soul,  what  sad  refrain 
Concludes  thy  musings  once  again? 

"  Oh,  for  the  time  when  I  shall  sleep 

Without  identity, 
And  never  care  how  rain  may  steep, 

Or  snow  may  cover  me  ! 
No  promised  heaven,  these  wild  desires 

Could  all,  or  half  fulfil ; 
No  threatened  hell,  with  quenchless  fires, 

Subdue  this  quenchless  will  I 

"  So  said  I,  and  still  say  the  same ; 

Still,  to  my  death,  will  say  — 
Three  gods,  within  this  little  frame, 

Are  warring  night  and  day ; 
Heaven  could  not  hold  them  all,  and  yet 

They  all  are  held  in  me, 


1 76  EMILY  BRONTE. 

And  must  be  mine  till  I  forget 

My  present  entity ! 
Oh,  for  the  time  when  in  my  breast 

Their  struggles  will  be  o'er  ! 
Oh,  for  the  day  when  I  shall  rest, 

And  never  suffer  more  I 

"  I  saw  a  spirit,  standing,  man, 

Where  thou  dost  stand  —  an  hour  ago, 
And  round  his  feet  three  rivers  ran, 

Of  equal  depth  and  equal  flow  — 
A  golden  stream,  and  one  like  blood, 

And  one  like  sapphire  seemed  to  be ; 
But  where  they  joined  their  triple  flood 

It  tumbled  in  an  inky  sea. 
The  spirit  sent  his  dazzling  gaze 

Down  through  that  ocean's  gloomy  night ; 
Then,  kindling  all,  with  sudden  blaze, 

The  glad  deep  sparkled  wide  and  bright  — 
White  as  the  sun,  far,  far  more  fair, 

Than  its  divided  sources  were  ! 

"  And  even  for  that  spirit,  seer, 

I've  watched  and  sought  my  life-time  long  ; 
Sought  him  in  heaven,  hell,  earth  and  air  — 

An  endless  search,  and  always  wrong ! 
Had  I  but  seen  his  glorious  eye 

Once  light  the  clouds  that  'wilder  me, 
I  ne'er  had  raised  this  coward  cry 

To  cease  to  think,  and  cease  to  be ; 
I  ne'er  had  called  oblivion  blest, 

Nor,  stretching  eager  hands  to  death, 
Implored  to  change  for  senseless  rest 

This  sentient  soul,  this  living  breath  — 
Oh,  let  me  die  —  that  power  and  will 

Their  cruel  strife  may  close ; 
And  conquered  good  and  conquering  ill 

Be  lost  in  one  repose  !  " 


WRITING  POETRY. 


1 77 


Some  semblance  of  coherence  may,  no  doubt, 
be  given  to  this  poem  by  making  the  three  first 
and  the  last  stanzas  to  be  spoken  by  the  ques- 
tioner, and  the  fourth  by  the  philosopher.  Even 
so,  the  subject  has  little  charm.  .What  we  care 
for  is  the  surprising  energy  with  which  the  suc- 
cessive images  are  projected,  the  earnest  ring  of 
the  verse,  the  imagination  which  invests  all  its 
changes.  The  man  and  the  philosopher  are  but 
the  clumsy  machinery  of  the  magic-lantern,  the 
more  kept  out  of  view  the  better. 

"  Conquered  good  and  conquering  ill !  "  A 
thought  that  must  often  have  risen  in  Emily's 
mind  during  this  year  and  those  succeeding.  A 
gloomy  thought,  sufficiently  strange  in  a  country 
parson's  daughter  ;  one  destined  to  have  a  great 
result  in  her  work. 

Of  these  visions  which  make  the  larger  half  of 
Emily's  contribution  to  the  tiny  book,  none  has 
a  more  eerie  grace  than  this  day-dream  of  the 
5th  of  March,  1844,  sampled  here  by  a  few  verses 
snatched  out  of  their  setting  rudely  enough : 

"  On  a  sunny  brae,  alone  I  lay 
One  summer  afternoon ; 
It  was  the  marriage-time  of  May 
With  her  young  lover,  June. 


"  The  trees  did  wave  their  plumy  crests, 
The  glad  birds  carolled  clear ; 


1 78  EMILY  BRONTE. 

And  I,  of  all  the  wedding  guests, 
Was  only  sullen  there. 

"  Now,  whether  it  were  really  so, 
I  never  could  be  sure, 
But  as  in  lit  of  peevish  woe, 
I  stretched  me  on  the  moor, 

"  A  thousand  thousand  gleaming  fires 
Seemed  kindling  in  the  air ; 
A  thousand  thousand  silvery  lyres 
Resounded  far  and  near : 

"  Methought,  the  very  breath  I  breathed 
Was  full  of  sparks  divine, 
And  all  my  heather-couch  was  wreathed 
By  that  celestial  shine  ! 

"  And,  while  the  wide  earth  echoing  rung 
To  their  strange  minstrelsy, 
The  little  glittering  spirits  sung, 
Or  seemed  to  sing,  to  me." 

What  they  sang  is  indeed  of  little  moment 
enough  —  a  strain  of  the  vague  pantheistic  sen- 
timent common  always  to  poets,  but  her  manner 
of  representing  the  little  airy  symphony  is  charm- 
ing. It  recalls  the  fairy-like  brilliance  of  the 
moors  at  sunset,  when  the  sun,  slipping  behind 
a  western  hill,  streams  in  level  rays  on  to  an 
opposite  crest,  gilding  with  pale  gold  the  fawn- 
colored  faded  grass  ;  tangled  in  the  film  of  lilac 
seeding  grasses,  spread,  like  the  bloom  on  a  grape, 
over  all  the  heath  ;  sparkling  on  the  crisp  edges 


WRITING  POETRY. 


179 


of  the  heather  blooms,  pure  white,  wild-rose 
color,  shell-tinted,  purple ;  emphasizing  every 
gray-green  spur  of  the  undergrowth  of  ground- 
lichen  ;  striking  every  scarlet-splashed,  white- 
budded  spray  of  ling  :  an  iridescent,  shimmering, 
dancing  effect  of  white  and  pink  and  purple 
flowers ;  of  lilac  bloom,  of  gray-green  and  whit- 
ish-gray buds  and  branches,  all  crisply  moving 
and  dancing  together  in  the  breeze  on  the  hill- 
top.    I  have  quoted  that  windy  night  in  a  line  — 

"The  dim  moon  struggling  in  the  sky." 

Here  is  another  verse  to  show  how  well  she 
watched  from  her  bedroom's  wide  window  the 
gray  far-stretching  skies  above  the  black  far- 
stretching  moors  — 

"  And  oh,  how  slow  that  keen-eyed  star 
Has  tracked  the  chilly  gray; 
What,  watching  yet!  how  very  far 
The  morning  lies  away." 

Such  direct,  vital  touches  recall  well-known 
passages  in  '  Wuthering  Heights  : '  Catharine's 
pictures  of  the  moors  ;  that  exquisite  allusion  to 
Gimmerton  Chapel  bells,  not  to  be  heard  on  the 
moors  in  summer  when  the  trees  are  in  leaf,  but 
always  heard  at  Wuthering  Heights  on  quiet 
days  following  a  great  thaw  or  a  season  of  steady 
rain. 

But  not,  alas  !  in  such  fantasy,  in  such  loving 


180  EMILY  BRONTE. 

intimacy  with  nature,  might  much  of  Emily's 
sorrowful  days  be  passed.  Nor  was  it  in  her 
nature  that  all  her  dreams  should  be  cheerful. 
The  finest  songs,  the  most  peculiarly  her  own, 
are  all  of  defiance  and  mourning,  moods  so  natu- 
ral to  her  that  she  seems  to  scarcely  need  the 
intervention  of  words  in  their  confession.  The 
wild,  melancholy,  and  elevating  music  of  which 
Charlotte  wisely  speaks  is  strong  enough  to 
move  our  very  hearts  to  sorrow  in  such  verses 
as  the  following,  things  which  would  not  touch 
us  at  all  were  they  written  in  prose  ;  which  have 
no  personal  note.     Yet  listen  — 

"  Death !  that  struck  when  I  was  most  confiding 
In  my  certain  faith  of  joy  to  be  — 
Strike  again,  Time's  withered  branch  dividing 
From  the  fresh  root  of  Eternity  ! 

"  Leaves,  upon  Time's  branch,  were  growing  brightly, 
Full  of  sap,  and  full  of  silver  dew ; 
Birds  beneath  its  shelter  gathered  nightly; 
Daily  round  its  flowe/s  the  wild  bees  flew. 

"  Sorrow  passed,  and  plucked  the  golden  blossom." 

Solemn,  haunting  with  a  passion  infinitely 
beyond  the  mere  words,  the  mere  image ;  be- 
cause, in  some  wonderful  way,  the  very  music 
of  the  verse  impresses,  reminds  us,  declares  the 
holy  inevitable  losses  of  death. 

A  finer  poem  yet  is  '  Remembrance,'  written 
two  years  later,  in  the  March  of  1845  ;  here  the 


WRITING  POETRY.  181 

words  and  the  thought  are  worthy  of  the  music 
and  the  mood.  It  has  vital  passion  in  it ;  though 
it  can  scarcely  be  personal  passion,  since,  "  fif- 
teen wild  Decembers"  before  1845,  Emily  Bronte 
was  a  girl  of  twelve  years  old,  companionless, 
save  for  still  living  sisters,  Branwell,  her  aunt, 
and  the  vicarage  servants.  Here,  as  elsewhere 
in  the  present  volume,  the  creative  instinct  re- 
veals itself  in  imagining  emotions  and  not  char- 
acters. The  artist  has  supplied  the  passion  of 
the  lover. 

"  Cold  in  the  earth  —  and  the  deep  snow  piled  above  thee, 
Far,  far  removed,  cold  in  the  dreary  grave  ! 
Have  I  forgot,  my  only  Love,  to  love  thee, 
Severed  at  last  by  Time's  all-severing  wave  ? 

"  Now,  when  alone,  do  my  thoughts  no  longer  hover 
Over  the  mountains,  on  that  northern  shore, 
Resting  their  wings  where  heath  and  fern-leaves  cover 
Thy  noble  heart  forever,  evermore  ? 

"  Cold  in  the  earth  —  and  fifteen  wild  Decembers, 
From  those  brown  hills,  have  melted  into  spring : 
Faithful,  indeed,  is  the  spirit  that  remembers 
After  such  years  of  change  and  suffering ! 

"  Sweet  Love  of  youth,  forgive,  if  I  forget  thee, 
While  the  world's  tide  is  bearing  me  along; 
Other  desires  and  other  hopes  beset  me, 

Hopes  which  obscure,  but  cannot  do  thee  wrong. 

"  No  later  light  has  lightened  up  my  heaven, 
No  second  morn  has  ever  shone  for  me ; 
All  my  life's  bliss  from  thy  dear  life  was  given, 
All  my  life's  bliss  is  in  the  grave  with  thee. 


1 82  EMILY  BRONTE. 

"  But,  when  the  days  of  golden  dreams  had  perished, 

And  even  Despair  was  powerless  to  destroy, 

Then  did  I  learn  how  existence  could  be  cherished, 

Strengthened,  and  fed  without  the  aid  of  joy. 

"  Then  did  I  check  the  tears  of  useless  passion  — 

Weaned  my  young  soul  from  yearning  after  thine ; 
Sternly  denied  its  burning  wish  to  hasten 
Down  to  that  tomb  already  more  than  mine. 

"  And,  even  yet,  I  dare  not  let  it  languish, 

Dare  not  indulge  in  memory's  rapturous  pain ; 
Once  drinking  deep  of  that  divinest  anguish, 
How  could  I  seek  the  empty  world  again  ?  " 

Better  still,  of  a  standard  excellence,  is  a  little 
poem,  which,  by  some  shy  ostrich  prompting, 
Emily  chose  to  call 

THE  OLD   STOIC. 

"  Riches  I  hold  in  light  esteem ; 
And  Love  I  laugh  to  scorn ; 
And  lust  of  fame  was  but  a  dream 
That  vanished  with  the  morn : 

"  And  if  I  pray,  the  only  prayer 
That  moves  my  lips  for  me 
Is, '  Leave  the  heart  that  now  I  bear, 
And  give  me  liberty ! ' 

"  Yes,  as  my  swift  days  near  their  goal, 
'Tis  all  that  I  implore ; 
In  life  and  death,  a  chainless  soul, 
With  courage  to  endure." 

Throughout  the  book  one  recognizes  the  ca- 
pacity for  producing  something  finer  and  quite 


WRITING  POETRY.  183 

different  from  what  is  here  produced  ;  one  rec- 
ognizes so  much,  but  not  the  author  of  '  Wuth- 
ering  Heights.'  Grand  impressions  of  mood  and 
landscape  reveal  a  remarkably  receptive  artistic 
temperament ;  splendid  and  vigorous  movement 
of  lines  shows  that  the  artist  is  a  poet.  Then 
we  are  in  a  cul-de-sac.  There  is  no  hint  of  what 
kind  of  poet  —  too  reserved  to  be  consistently 
lyric,  there  is  not  sufficient  evidence  of  the  dra- 
matic faculty  to  help  us  on  to  the  true  scent. 
All  we  can  say  is  that  we  have  before  us  a 
mind  capable  of  very  complete  and  real  illusions, 
haunted  by  imagination,  always  fantastic,  and 
often  terrible ;  a  temperament  reserved,  fearless, 
and  brooding ;  a  character  of  great  strength  and 
ruggedness,  extremely  tenacious  of  impressions. 
We  must  call  in  Monsieur  Taine  and  his  Milieu 
to  account  for  '  Wuthering  Heights.' 

This  first  volume  reveals  an  overpowering 
imagination  which  has  not  yet  reached  its  proper 
outlet.  It  is  painful,  in  reading  these  early 
poems,  to  feel  how  ruthless  and  horrible  that 
strong  imagination  often  was,  as  yet  directed 
on  no  purposed  line.  Sometimes,  indeed,  sweet 
fancies  came  to  Emily,  but  often  they  were 
visions  of  black  dungeons,  scenes  of  death,  and 
hopeless  parting,  of  madness  and  agony. 

"  So  stood  I,  in  Heaven's  glorious  sun, 
And  in  the  glare  of  Hell ; 


1 84  EMILY  BRONTE. 

My  spirit  drank  a  mingled  tone, 
Of  seraph's  song,  and  demon's  moan ; 
What  my  soul  bore,  my  soul  alone 
Within  itself  may  tell !  " 

It  is  painful,  indeed,  to  think  that  the  sur- 
roundings of  this  violent  imagination,  with  its 
bias  towards  the  capricious  and  the  terrifying, 
were  loneliness,  sorrow,  enforced  companionship 
with  degradation  ;  a  life  so  bitter,  for  a  long 
time,  and  made  so  bitter  through  another's 
fault,  that  Emily  welcomed  her  fancies,  even  the 
gloomiest,  as  a  happy  outlet  from  reality. 

"  Oh,  dreadful  is  the  check  —  intense  the  agony  — 
When  the  ear  begins  to  hear,  and  the  eye  begins  to  see ; 
When  the  pulse  begins  to  throb,  the  brain  to  think  again, 
The  soul  to  feel  the  flesh,  and  the  flesh  to  feel  the  chain." 

Such  were  the  verses  that  Charlotte  dis- 
covered one  autumn  day  of  1845,  which  sur- 
prised her,  with  good  reason,  by  their  originality 
and  music.  Emily  was  not  pleased  by  what  in 
her  eyes,  so  jealous  of  her  liberty,  must  have 
seemed  a  deliberate  interference  with  her  prop- 
erty. "  My  sister  Emily,"  continues  Charlotte, 
"was  not  a  person  of  demonstrative  character, 
nor  one  on  the  recesses  of  whose  mind  and  feel- 
ings even  those  nearest  and  dearest  to  her  could 
intrude  unlicensed  ;  it  took  hours  to  reconcile 
her  to  the  discovery  I  had  made,  and  days  to 
persuade  her  that   such   poems  merited   publi- 


WRITING  POETRY.  185 

cation.  I  knew,  however,  that  a  mind  like  hers 
could  not  be  without  some  latent  spark  of  honor- 
able ambition,  and  refused  to  be  discouraged  in 
my  attempts  to  fan  that  spark  to  flame. 

"  Meantime,  my  younger  sister  quietly  pro- 
duced some  of  her  own  compositions,  intimating 
that  since  Emily's  had  given  me  pleasure,  I  might 
like  to  look  at  some  of  hers.  I  could  not  but  be 
a  partial  judge,  yet  I  thought  that  these  verses, 
too,  had  a  sweet  sincere  pathos  of  their  own." 

Only  a  partial  judge  could  find  anything  much 
to  praise  in  gentle  Anne's  trivial  verses.  Had 
the  book  an  index  of  first  lines,  what  a  scathing 
criticism  on  the  contents  would  it  be ! 

"  Sweet  are  thy  strains,  celestial  bard." 

"  I'll  rest  me  in  this  sheltered  bower." 

"  Oh,  I  am  very  weary,  though  tears  no  longer  flow." 

From  such  beginnings  we  too  clearly  foresee 
the  hopeless  bathos  of  the  end.  Poor  child,  her 
real,  deep  sorrows,  expressed  in  such  worn-out 
ill-fitting  phrases,  are  as  little  touching  as  the 
beauty  of  a  London  shop-girl  under  the  ready- 
made  cast-off  adornments  of  her  second-hand 
finery. 

Charlotte,  however,  knowing  the  real  sorrow, 
the  real  meekness  that  inspired  them,  not  un- 
naturally put  into  the  trivial  verses  the  pathos 
of  the  writer's  circumstances.  Of  a  truth,  her 
own  poems  are  not  such  as  would  justify  any 


1 86  EMILY  BRONTE. 

great  rigor  of  criticism.  They  are  often,  as 
poems,  actually  inferior  to  Anne's,  her  manner 
of  dragging  in  a  tale  or  a  moral  at  the  end  of  a 
lyric  having  quite  a  comical  effect ;  yet,  on  the 
whole,  her  share  of  the  book  clearly  distin- 
guishes her  as  an  eloquent  and  imaginative 
raconteuse,  at  the  same  time  that  it  denies  her 
the  least  sprout,  the  smallest  leaf,  of  that  flower- 
less  wreath  of  bays  which  Emily  might  claim. 
But  at  that  time  the  difference  was  not  so 
clearly  distinguishable ;  though  Charlotte  ever 
felt  and  owned  her  sister's  superiority  in  this 
respect,  it  was  not  recognized  as  of  a  sort  to 
quite  outshine  her  own  little  tales  in  verse,  and 
quite  outlustre  Anne's  pious  effusions. 

A  packet  of  manuscript  was  selected,  a  little 
packet  written  in  three  different  hands  and 
signed  by  three  names.  The  sisters  did  not 
wish  to  reveal  their  identity ;  they  decided  on  a 
nom  de  plume,  and  chose  the  common  north- 
country,  surname  of  Bell.  They  did  not  wish  to 
be  known  as  women  :  "  we  had  a  vague  impres- 
sion that  authoresses  are  liable  to  be  looked  on 
with  prejudices;"  yet  their  fastidious  honor 
prevented  them  from  wearing  a  mask  they  had 
no  warrant  for ;  to  satisfy  both  scruples  they 
assumed  names  that  might  equally  belong  to  a 
man  or  a  woman.  In  the  part  of  Yorkshire 
where  they  lived  children  are  often  christened 


WRITING  POETRY.  187 

by  family  names ;  over  the  shops  they  would  see 
"  Sunderland  Akroyd,"  varied  by  "  Pighills  Sun- 
derland," with  scarce  a  John  or  James  to  bear 
them  company.  So  there  was  nothing  strange 
to  them  in  the  fashion  so  ingeniously  turned 
to  their  own  uses;  Ellis  veiled  Emily;  Currer, 
Charlotte ;  Acton,  Anne.  The  first  and  last  are 
common  names  enough  —  a  Miss  Currer  who 
was  one  of  the  subscribers  to  Cowan's  Bridge 
may  have  suggested  her  pseudonym  to  Char- 
lotte. At  last  every  detail  was  discussed,  de- 
cided, and  the  packet  sent  off  to  London  to  try 
its  fortunes  in  the  world  : 

"This  bringing  out  of  our  little  book  was  hard 
work.  As  was  to  be  expected  neither  we  nor 
our  poems  were  at  all  wanted  ;  but  for  this  we 
had  been  prepared  at  the  outset ;  though  inex- 
perienced ourselves,  we  had  read  the  experience 
of  others.  The  great  puzzle  lay  in  the  difficulty 
of  getting  answers  of  any  kind  from  the  pub- 
lishers to  whom  we  applied.  Being  greatly 
harassed  by  this  obstacle,  I  ventured  to  apply  to 
the  Messrs.  Chambers  of  Edinburgh  for  a  word 
of  advice :  they  may  have  forgotten  the  circum- 
stance, but  /  have  not ;  for  from  them  I  received 
a  brief  and  business-like  but  civil  and  sensible 
reply,  on  which  we  acted,  and  at  last  made  a 
way." " 

1  Memoir.     C.  B. 


1 88  EMILY  BRONTE. 

Ultimately  the  three  sisters  found  a  publisher 
who  would  undertake  the  work  upon  commission  ; 
a  favorable  answer  came  from  Messrs.  Aylott 
&  Jones,  of  Paternoster  Row,  who  estimated  the 
expense  of  the  book  at  thirty  guineas.  It  was  a 
great  deal  for  the  three  sisters  to  spare  from 
their  earnings,  but  they  were  eager  to  print, 
eager  to  make  sacrifices,  as  though  in  some  dim 
way  they  saw  already  the  glorious  goal.  But  at 
present  there  was  business  to  do.  They  bought 
one  of  the  numerous  little  primers  that  are  always 
on  sale  to  show  the  poor  vain  moth  of  amateur 
authorship  how  least  to  burn  his  wings  —  little 
books  more  eagerly  bought  and  read  than  any 
of  those  that  they  bring  into  the  world.  Such  a 
publisher's  guide,  meant  for  ambitious  school- 
boys, the  Bronte's  bought  and  studied  as  anx- 
iously as  they.  By  the  end  of  February  all  was 
settled,  the  type  decided  upon,  the  money  de- 
spatched, the  printers  at  work.  Emily  Bronte's 
copy  is  dated  May  7th,  1846. 

What  eagerness  at  the  untying  of  the  parcel 
in  which  those  first  copies  came  !  What  disap- 
pointment, chequered  with  ecstasy,  at  reading 
their  own  verse,  unaltered,  yet  in  print !  An 
experience  not  so  common  then  as  now  ;  to  be  a 
poetess  in  those  days  had  a  certain  distinction, 
and  the  three  sisters  must  have  anxiously  waited 
for  a  greeting.     The  poems  had  been  despatched 


WRITING  POETRY.  ^9 

to  many  magazines :  Colburri s,  Bentleys,  Hood's, 
yerrolcfs,  Blackwood's,  their  early  idol ;  to  the 
Edinburgh  Review,  Tait's  Edinburgh  Magazine, 
the  Dublin  University  Magazine ;  to  the  Athe- 
nceum,  the  Literary  Gazette,  the  Critic,  and  to  the 
Daily  News,  the  Times,  and  to  the  Britannia 
newspaper.  Surely  from  some  quarter  they 
would  hear  such  an  authentic  word  of  warning 
or  welcome  as  should  confirm  at  once  their 
hopes  or  their  despairs.  They  had  grown  used 
to  waiting ;  but  they  had  long  to  wait.  At  last, 
on  July  4th,  the  Athenceitm  reviewed  their  book 
in  a  short  paragraph,  and  it  is  remarkable  that, 
though  in  such  reviews  of  the  poems  as  appeared 
after  the  publication  of  'Jane  Eyre,'  it  is  always 
Currer  Bell's  "  fine  sense  of  nature,"  Currer 
Bell's  "  matured  intellect  and  masterly  hand," 
that  wins  all  the  praise ;  still,  in  this  early  no- 
tice, the  yet  unblinded  critic  has  perceived  to 
whom  the  palm  is  due.  Ellis  Bell  he  places  first 
of  the  three  supposed  brothers,  naming  him  "  a 
fine  quaint  spirit  with  an  evident  power  of  wing 
that  may  reach  heights  not  here  attempted." 
Next  to  him  the  critic  ranks  Currer,  lastly  Anne. 
Scarce  another  notice  did  they  see. 

The  little  book  was  evidently  a  failure  ;  it  had 
fallen  still-born  from  the  press.  Were  all  their 
hopes  to  die  as  soon  as  they  were  born  ?  At 
least  they  resolved  not  to  be  too  soon  baffled, 


190 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


and  already,  in  the  thick  of  their  disappointment, 
began  to  lay  the  plots  of  the  novels  they  would 
write.  Like  our  army,  they  gained  their  battles 
by  never  owning  they  were  beaten. 

They  kept  it  all  to  themselves,  this  disappoint- 
ment, these  resolutions.  When  the  inquisitive 
postman  asked  Mr.  Bronte  if  he  knew  who  was 
that  Mr.  Currer  Bell  for  whom  so  many  letters 
always  came,  the  old  gentleman  answered  with 
a  sense  of  authority,  "  My  good  man,  there  is  no 
such  person  in  the  parish  ; "  and  when,  on  rare 
occasions,  Branwell  came  into  the  room  where 
they  were  writing,  no  word  was  said  of  the  work 
that  was  going  on.  Not  even  to  the  sisterly 
Ellen,  so  near  to  all  their  hearts,  was  any  con- 
fession made  of  the  way  they  spent  their  time. 

"We  have  done  nothing  (to  speak  of)  since  you 
were  here,"  says  conscientious  Anne.  Never- 
theless their  friend  drew  her  conclusions.  About 
this  time  she  came  to  stay  at  Haworth,  and 
sometimes  (a  little  amused  at  their  reticence) 
she  would  tease  them  with  her  suspicions,  to 
Charlotte's  alarmed  surprise.  Once,  at  this  time, 
when  they  were  walking  on  the  moor  together, 
a  sudden  change  and  light  came  into  the  sky. 
"  Look,"  said  Charlotte ;  and  the  four  girls  looked 
up  and  saw  three  suns  shining  clearly  overhead. 
They  stood  a  little  while  silently  gazing  at  the 
beautiful  parhelion  ;  Charlotte,  her  friend,  and 


WRITING  POETRY. 


191 


Anne  clustered  together,  Emily  a  little  higher, 
standing  on  a  heathery  knoll.  "  That  is  you  !  " 
said  Ellen  at  last.  "  You  are  the  three  suns." 
"  Hush  ! "  cried  Charlotte,  indignant  at  the  too 
shrewd  nonsense  of  her  friend ;  but  as  Ellen, 
her  suspicions  confirmed  by  Charlotte's  violence, 
lowered  her  eyes  to  the  earth  again,  she  looked 
a  moment  at  Emily.  She  was  still  standing  on 
her  knoll,  quiet,  satisfied  ;  and  round  her  lips 
there  hovered  a  very  soft  and  happy  smile.  She 
was  not  angry,  the  independent  Emily.  She  had 
liked  the  little  speech. 


CHAPTER    XIII. 

TROUBLES. 

While  Emily  Bronte  was  striving  to  create  a 
world  of  fancy  and  romance  natural  to  her  pas- 
sionate spirit,  the  real,  every-day  existence  in 
which  she  had  to  work  and  endure  was  becoming 
day  by  day  more  anxious  and  troubled.  An 
almost  unlivable  life  it  seems,  recalling  it,  stifled 
with  the  vulgar  tragedy  of  Branwell's  woes,  the 
sordid  cares  that  his  debts  entailed,  the  wearing 
anxiety  that  watched  the  oncoming  blindness  of 
old  Mr.  Bronte.  These  months  of  1846  during - 
which,  let  us  remember,  Emily  was  writing 
'  Wuthering  Heights,'  must  have  been  the  heav- 
iest and  dreariest  of  her  days  ;  it  was  during 
their  weary  course  that  she  at  last  perceived  how 
utterly  hopeless,  how  insensible  to  good,  must  be 
the  remaining  life  of  her  brother. 

For  so  long  as  the  future  was  left  him,  Bran- 
well  never  reached  the  limit  of  abasement.  He 
drank  to  drown  sorrow,  to  deaden  memory  and 
the  flight  of  time  ;  he  went  far,  but  not  too  far 
to  turn  back  when  the  day  should  dawn  which 


TROUBLES. 


193 


should  recall  him  to  prosperity  and  happiness. 
He  was  still,  though  perverted  and  debased, 
capable  of  reform,  and  susceptible  to  holy  influ- 
ences. He  had  not  finally  cast  away  goodness 
and  honor ;  they  were  but  momentarily  discarded, 
like  rings  taken  off  for  heavy  work  ;  by-and-by  he 
would  put  them  on  again. 

Suddenly  the  future  was  taken  away.  One 
morning,  about  six  months  after  his  dismissal,  a 
letter  came  for  Branwell  announcing  the  death 
of  his  former  employer.  All  he  had  ever  hoped 
for  lay  at  his  feet  —  the  good,  wronged  man  was 
dead.  His  wife,  his  wealth,  should  now:  make 
Branwell  glad.  A  new  life,  earned  by  sin  and 
hatred,  should  begin  ;  a  new  good  life,  honorable 
and  happy.  It  was  in  Branwell's  nature  to  be 
glad  when  peace  and  honor  came  to  him,  al- 
though he  would  make  no  effort  to  attain  them, 
and  this  morning  he  was  very  happy. 

"  He  fairly  danced  down  the  churchyard  as  if 
he  were  out  of  his  mind ;  he  was  so  fond  of  that 
woman,"  says  my  informant. 

The  next  morning  he  rose,  dressed  himself 
with  care,  and  prepared  for  a  journey,  but  before 
he  had  even  set  out  from  Haworth  two  men 
came  riding  to  the  village  post  haste.  They 
sent  for  Branwell,  and  when  he  arrived,  in  a 
great  state  of  excitement,  one  of  the  riders  dis- 
mounted and  went  with  him  into  the  "Black 

13 


194 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


Bull."  They  went  into  the  brown  parlor  of  the 
inn,  the  cheerful,  wainscoted  parlor,  where  Bran- 
well  had  so  often  lorded  it  over  his  boon  com- 
panions from  his  great  three-cornered  chair. 
After  some  time  the  messenger  rose  and  left  ; 
and  those  who  were  in  the  inn  thought  they 
heard  a  strange  noise  in  the  parlor  —  a  bleating 
like  a  calf's.  Yet,  being  busy  people,  they  did 
not  go  in  to  see  if  anything  had  happened,  and 
amid  the  throng  of  their  employments  the  sound 
passed  out  of  their  ears  and  out  of  their  memory. 
Hours  afterwards  the  young  girl  who  used  to 
help  in  the  housework  at  the  inn,  the  Anne  who 
still  remembers  Branwell's  fluent  greetings,  found 
occasion  to  enter  the  parlor.  She  went  in  and 
found  him  on  the  floor,  looking  changed  and 
dreadful.  He  had  fallen  down  in  a  sort  of  stu- 
pefied fit.  After  that  day  he  was  an  altered 
being. 

The  message  he  had  heard  had  changed  the 
current  of  his  life.  It  was  not  the  summons  he 
expected  ;  but  a  prayer  from  the  woman  he  loved 
not  to  come  near  her,  not  to  tempt  her  to  ruin  ; 
if  she  saw  him  once,  the  care  of  her  children, 
the  trust  of  their  fortunes,  all  was  forfeited.  She 
entreated  him  to  keep  away  ;  anxious,  perhaps, 
in  this  sudden  loneliness  of  death,  to  retrieve 
the  past,  or  by  some  tender  superstition  made 
less  willing  to  betray  the  dead  than  the  living ; 


TROUBLES. 


195 


or,  it  may  be,  merely  eager  to  retain  at  all  costs 
the  rank,  the  station,  the  honors  to  which  she 
was  accustomed.  Be  it  as  it  may,  Branwell 
found  himself  forgotten. 

"  Oh,  dreadful  heart  of  woman, 
That  in  one  day  forgets  what  man  remembers, 
Forgetting  him  therewith." 

After  that  day  he  was  different.  He  de- 
spaired, and  drank  himself  to  death,  drinking  to 
the  grave  and  forgetfulness,  gods  of  his  Sabbath, 
and  borrowing  a  transient  pleasure  at  fearful 
interest.  But  to  such  a  man  the  one  supreme 
temptation  is  enjoyment:  it  must  be  had,  though 
life  and  heaven  go  forfeit.  And  while  he  ca- 
roused, "  and  by  his  whole  manner  gave  indica- 
tions of  intense  enjoyment,"  1  his  old  father  grew 
quite  blind,  Anne  day  by  day  more  delicate  and 
short  of  breath,  ambitious  Charlotte  pined  like 
an  eagle  in  a  cage,  and  Emily,  writing  '  Wither- 
ing Heights/  called  those  affected  who  found 
the  story  more  terrible  than  life. 

It  was  she  who  saw  most  of  her  abandoned 
brother,  for  Anne  could  only  shudder  at  his  sin, 
and  Charlotte  was  too  indignant  for  pity.  But 
Emily,  the  stern,  charitable  woman,  who  spared 
herself  no  pang,  who  loved  to  carry  tenderly  the 
broken-winged    nestlings    in   her   hard-working 

1  George  Searle  Phillips. 


I96  EMILY  BRONTE. 

hands,  Emily  was  not  revolted  by  his  weakness. 
Shall  I  despise  the  deer  for  his  timid  swiftness 
to  fly,  or  the  leveret  because  it  cannot  die 
bravely,  or  mock  the  death-agony  of  the  wolf  be- 
cause the  beast  is  gaunt  and  foul  to  see  ?  she 
asks  herself  in  one  of  the  few  personal  poems 
she  has  left  us.  No !  An  emphatic  no  ;  for 
Emily  Bronte  had  a  place  in  her  heart  for  all  the 
wild  children  of  nature,  and  to  despise  them  for 
their  natural  instincts  was  impossible  to  her. 
And  thus  it  came  about  that  she  ceased  to  grow 
indignant  at  Branwell's  follies ;  she  made  up  her 
mind  to  accept  with  angerless  sorrow  his  natural 
vices.  All  that  was  left  of  her  ready  disdain 
was  an  extreme  patience  which  expected  no  re- 
form, asked  no  improvement ;  the  patience  she 
had  for  the  leveret  and  the  wolf,  things  con- 
temptible and  full  of  harm,  yet  not  so  by  their 
own  choice ;  the  patience  of  acquiescent  and 
hopeless  despair. 

Branwell's  pity  was  all  for  himself.  He  did 
not  spare  the  pious  household  forced  into  the 
contamination  of  his  evil  habits.  "Nothing  hap- 
pens at  Haworth,"  says  Charlotte  ;  "  nothing  at 
least  of  a  pleasant  kind.  One  little  incident 
occurred  about  a  week  ago  to  sting  us  into  life  ; 
but,  if  it  give  no  more  pleasure  for  you  to  hear 
than  it  does  for  us  to  witness,  you  will  scarcely 
thank  me  for  adverting  to  it.     It  was  merely  the 


/ 


TROUBLES.  iqj 

arri\\  .  of  a  sheriff's  officer  on  a  visit  to  Bran  well, 
invit.  \g  him  either  to  pay  his  debts  or  take  a 
trip  to  York.  Of  course  his  debts  had  to  be  paid. 
It  is  not  agreeable  to  lose  money,  time  after  time, 
in  this  way  ;  but  where  is  the  use  of  dwelling  on 
such  subjects  ?     It  will  make  him  no  better."  1 

Reproaches  only  hardened  his  heart  and  made 
him  feel  himself  more  than  ever  abused  by  cir- 
cumstances and  fate.  "Sometimes,"2  says  Mr. 
Phillips,  "he  would  complain  of  the  way  he  was 
treated  at  home,  and,  as  an  instance,  related  the 
following  : 

"  One  of  the  Sunday-school  girls,  in  whom  he 
and  all  his  house  took  much  interest,  fell  very 
sick,  and  they  were  afraid  she  would  not  live. 

" '  I  went  to  see  the  poor  little  thing,'  he  said, 
'  sat  with  her  half-an-hour  and  read  a  psalm  to 
her  and  a  hymn  at  her  request.  I  felt  very  much 
like  praying  with  her  too,'  he  added,  his  voice 
trembling  with  emotion,  '  but  you  see  I  was  not 
good  enough.  How  dare  I  pray  for  another,  who 
had  almost  forgotten  how  to  pray  for  myself  ? 
I  came  away  with  a  heavy  heart,  for  I  felt  sure 
she  would  die,  and  went  straight  home,  where  I 
fell  into  melancholy  musings.  I  wanted  some- 
body to  cheer  me.  I  often  do ;  but  no  kind  word 
finds  its  way  to  my  ears,  much  less  to  my  heart. 

1  Mrs.  Gaskell. 

2  '  Branwell  Bronte.*    G.  S.  Phillips. 


ig8  EMILY  BRONTE. 

Charlotte  observed  my  depression,  and  asked 
what  ailed  me.  So  I  told  her.  She  looked  at 
me  with  a  look  which  I  shall  never  forget,  if  I 
live  to  be  a  hundred  years  old  —  which  I  never 
shall.  It  was  not  like  her  at  all.  It  wounded 
me,  as  if  some  one  had  struck  me  a  blow  in  the 
mouth.  It  involved  ever  so  many  things  in  it. 
It  was  a  dubious  look.  It  ran  over  me,  ques- 
tioning and  examining,  as  if  I  had  been  a  wild 
beast.  It  said,  '  Did  my  ears  deceive  me,  or  did 
I  hear  aught  ? '  And  then  came  the  painful, 
baffled  expression  which  was  worse  than  all.  It 
said,  '  I  wonder  if  that's  true  ? '  But,  as  she  left 
the  room,  she  seemed  to  accuse  herself  of  having 
wronged  me,  and  smiled  kindly  upon  me  and 
said,  '  She  is  my  little  scholar,  and  I  will  go  and 
see  her.'  I  replied  not  a  word.  I  was  too  much 
cut  up.  When  she  was  gone,  I  came  over  here 
to  the  "  Black  Bull  "  and  made  a  night  of  it  in 
sheer  disgust  and  desperation.  Why  could  they 
not  give  me  some  credit  when  I  was  trying  to  be 
good  ? '  " 

In  such  wise  the  summer  of  1846  drew  on, 
wearily  enough,  with  increased  economies  in  the 
already  frugal  household,  that  Branwell's  debts 
might  honorably  be  paid,  with  gathering  fears 
for  the  father,  on  whom  dyspepsia  and  blindness 
were  laying  heavy  hands.  He  could  no  longer 
see  to  read ;  he,  the  great  walker  who  loved  to 


TROUBLES. 


199 


ramble  alone,  could  barely  grope  his  way  about ; 
all  that  was  left  to  him  of  sight  was  the  ability 
to  recognize  well-known  figures  standing  in  a 
strong  light.  Yet  he  still  continued  to  preach  ; 
standing  gray  and  sightless  in  the  pulpit,  utter- 
ing what  words  (perforce  unstudied)  came  to  his 
lips.  Himself  in  his  sorrowful  age  and  stern 
endurance  a  most  noble  and  comprehensible 
sermon. 

His  spirits  were  much  depressed  ;  for  now  he 
could  no  longer  forget  himself  in  his  lonely  stud- 
ies, no  longer  walk  on  the  free  moors  alone  when 
trouble  invaded  the  narrow  house  below.  He 
lived  now  of  necessity  in  intimate  relation  with 
his  children  ;  he  depended  on  them.  And  now 
he  made  acquaintance  with  the  heroic  nature  of 
his  daughters,  and  saw  the  petty  drudgery  of 
their  lives,  and  how  worthily  they  turned  it  to  a 
grace  in  the  wearing  of  it.  And  now  he  saw 
clearly  the  vain,  dependent,  passionate  tempera- 
ment of  his  son,  and  knew  how,  by  the  lack  of 
training,  the  plant  had  been  ruined  and  draggled 
in  the  mire,  which  might  have  beautifully  flowered 
and  borne  good  fruit  had  it  been  staked  and  sup- 
ported ;  the  poor  espalier  thing  that  could  not 
stand  alone.  Nemesis  had  visited  his  home. 
He  felt  the  consequences  of  his  selfishness,  his 
arrogance,  his  cold  isolation,  and  bitterly,  bit- 
terly he  mourned. 


2oo  '    EMILY  BRONTE. 

The  cataract  grew  month  by  month,  a  thick- 
ening veil  that  blotted  out  the  world  ;  and  month 
by  month  the  old  blind  man  sat  wearily  thinking 
through  the  day  of  his  dear  son's  ruin,  for  he  had 
ever  loved  Branwell  the  best,  and  lay  at  night 
listening  for  his  footsteps  ;  while  below,  alone, 
his  daughter  watched  as  wearily  for  the  prodi- 
gal's return. 

The  three  girls  looked  on  and  longed  to  help. 
All  that  they  could  do  they  did,  Charlotte  being 
her  father's  constant  helper  and  companion ;  but 
all  they  could  do  was  little.  They  would  not 
reconcile  themselves  to  see  him  sink  into  blind- 
ness. They  busied  themselves  in  collecting  what 
information  they  could  glean  concerning  opera- 
tions upon  cataract,  and  the  names  of  oculists. 
But  at  present  there  was  nothing  to  do  but  wait 
and  endure ;  for  even  they,  with  their  limited 
knowledge,  could  tell  that  their  father's  eyes  were 
not  ready  yet  for  the  surgeon's  knife. 

Meanwhile  they  worked  in  secret  at  their 
novels.  So  soon  as  the  poems  had  been  sent 
off,  and  even  when  it  was  evident  that  that  ven- 
ture, too,  had  failed,  the  sisters  determined  to 
try  and  earn  a  livelihood  by  writing.  They  could 
no  longer  leave  their  home,  their  father  being 
helpless  and  Branwell  worse  than  helpless  ;  yet, 
with  ever-increasing  expenses  and  no  earnings, 
bare  living  was  difficult  to  compass.    The  future, 


TROUBLES.  20 1 

too,  was  uncertain  ;  should  their  father's  case 
prove  hopeless,  should  he  become  quite  blind,  ill, 
incapable  of  work,  they  would  be  homeless  in- 
deed. With  such  gloomy  boding  in  their  hearts, 
with  such  stern  impelling  necessity  bidding  them 
strive  and  ever  strive  again,  as  a  baffled  swimmer 
strives  for  land,  these  three  sisters  began  their 
work.  Two  of  them,  in  after  time,  were  to  be 
known  through  all  the  world,  were  to  be  influ- 
ences for  all  time  to  come,  and,  a  new  glory  in 
the  world  not  known  before  their  days,  were  to 
make  up  "  with  Mrs.  Browning  the  perfect  trinity 
of  English  female  fame."  x  But  with  little  thought 
of  this,  heavily  and  very  wearily,  they  set  out 
upon  their  undertaking. 

Every  evening  when  the  sewing  was  put  away 
the  writing  was  begun,  the  three  sisters,  sitting 
round  the  table,  or  more  often  marching  round 
and  round  the  room  as  in  their  schoolgirl  days, 
would  hold  solemn  council  over  the  progress  of 
their  work.  The  division  of  chapters,  the  naming 
of  characters,  the'  progress  of  events,  was  then 
decided,  so  that  each  lent  a  hand  to  the  other's 
work.  Then,  such  deliberations  done,  the  paper 
would  be  drawn  out,  and  the  casual  notes  of  the 
day  corrected  and  writ  fair ;  and  for  an  hour  or 
more  there  would  be  no  sound  save  the  scratch- 
ing of  pens  on  the  paper  and  the  gusty  wailing 
of  the  wind  outside. 

1  A.  C.  Swinburne.     '  Note  on  Charlotte  Bronte.' 


202  EMILY  BRONTE. 

Such  methodical  work  makes  rapid  progress. 
In  a  few  months  each  sister  had  a  novel  com- 
pleted. Charlotte,  a  grave  and  quiet  study  of 
Belgian  life  and  character,  '  The  Professor  ; ' 
Anne,  a  painstaking  account  of  a  governess's 
trials,  which  she  entitled  'Agnes  Grey.'  Emily's 
story  was  very  different,  and  less  perceptibly  in- 
terwoven with  her  own  experience.  We  all  know 
at  least  the  name  of '  Wuthering  Heights.' 

The  novels  were  sent  off,  and  at  first  seemed 
even  less  likely  of  success  than  the  school  had 
been,  or  the  book  of  verses.  Publisher  after  pub- 
lisher rejected  them  ;  then,  thinking  that  perhaps 
it  was  not  cunning  to  send  the  three  novels  in  a 
batch,  since  the  ill-success  of  one  might  prejudice 
all,  the  sisters  sent  them  separately  to  try  their 
chance.  But  ever  with  the  same  result  —  month 
after  month,  came  rejection. 

At  home  affairs  continued  no  less  dishearten- 
ing. Branwell  often  laid  up  with  violent  fits  of 
sickness,  Mr.  Bronte  becoming  more  utterly 
blind.  At  last,  in  the  end  of  July,  Emily  and 
Charlotte  set  out  for  Manchester  to  consult  an 
oculist.  There  they  heard  of  Mr.  Wilson  as  the 
best,  and  to  him  they  went ;  but  only  to  find  that 
no  decisive  opinion  could  be  given  until  their 
father's  eyes  had  been  examined.  Yet,  not  dis- 
heartened, they  went  back  to  Haworth  ;  for  at 
least  they  had  discovered  a  physician  and  had 


TROUBLES. 


203 


made  sure  that,  even  at  their  father's  advanced 
age,  an  operation  might  prove  successful.  There- 
fore, at  the  end  of  August,  Charlotte,  who  was 
her  father's  chief  companion  and  the  most  easily 
spared  from  home,  took  old  Mr.  Bronte  to  Man- 
chester. Mr.  Wilson  pronounced  his  eyes  ready 
for  the  operation,  and  the  old  man  and  his 
daughter  went  into  lodgings  for  a  month.  "I 
wonder  how  Emily  and  Anne  will  get  on  at  home 
with  Branwell,"  says  Charlotte,  accustomed  to 
be  the  guide  and  leader  of  that  little  household. 

Hardly  enough,  no  doubt ;  for  Anne  was  little 
fitted  now  to  struggle  against  fate.  She  never 
had  completely  rallied  from  the  prolonged  misery 
of  her  sojourn  with  Branwell  in  that  fatal  house 
which  was  to  blight  their  future  and  be  blighted  by 
them.  She  grew  weaker  and  weaker,  that  "  gentle 
little  one,"  so  tender,  so  ill  fitted  to  her  rugged 
and  gloomy  path  of  life.  Emily  looked  on  with 
a  breaking  heart  ;  trouble  encompassed  her  on 
every  side  ;  her  father  blind  in  Manchester  ;  her 
brother  drinking  himself  to  death  at  home  ;  her 
sister  failing,  paling  day  by  day ;  and  every  now 
and  then  a  letter  would  come  announcing  that 
such  and  such  a  firm  of  publishers  had  no  use 
for  'Agnes  Grey'  and  'Wuthering  Heights.' 

Charlotte  in  Manchester  fared  little  better. 
'The  Professor'  had  been  returned  to  heron  the 
very  day  of  her  father's  operation,  when  (bearing 


204  EMILY  BRONTE. 

this  unspoken-of  blow  as  best  she  might)  she 
had  to  stay  in  the  room  while  the  cataract  was 
removed  from  his  eyes.  Exercise  makes  courage 
strong ;  that  evening,  when  her  father  in  his 
darkened  room  might  no  longer  speak  or  be 
spoken  to,  that  very  evening  she  began  'Jane 
Eyre.' 

This  was  being  braver  than  brave  Emily,  who 
has  left  us  nothing,  save  a  few  verses,  written 
later  than  '  Wuthering  Heights.'  But  at  Haworth 
there  was  labor  and  to  spare  for  every  instant 
of  the  busy  days,  and  Charlotte,  in  Manchester, 
found  her  unaccustomed  leisure  and  unoccupied 
confinement  very  dreary. 

Towards  the  end  of  September  Mr.  Bronte 
was  pronounced  on  a  fair  way  to  recovery,  and 
he  and  Charlotte  set  out  for  Haworth.  It  was 
a  happy  home-coming,  for  things  had  prospered 
better  than  Charlotte  had  dared  to  hope  during 
the  latter  weeks  of  her  absence.  Every  day  the 
old  man  grew  stronger,  and  little  by  little  his 
sight  came  back.  He  could  see  the  glorious 
purple  of  the  moors,  Emily's  moors,  no  less 
beloved  in  her  sorrowing  womanhood  than  in 
her  happy  hoyden  time  of  youth.  He  could  see 
his  children's  faces,  and  the  miserable  change 
in  Branwell's  features.  He  began  to  be  able 
to  read  a  little,  a  very  little  at  a  time,  and  by 
November  was  sufficiently  recovered  to  take  the 


TROUBLES. 


205 


whole  duty  of  the  three  Sunday  services  upon 
himself. 

Not  long  after  this  time,  three  members  of 
that  quiet  household  were  still  further  cheered 
by  learning  that  'Agnes  Gray'"  and  '  Wuthering 
Heights '  had  found  acceptance  at  the  hands  of 
a  publisher.  Acceptance ;  but  upon  impover- 
ishing terms.  Still,  for  so  much  they  were 
thankful.  To  write,  and  bury  unread  the  things 
one  has  written,  is  playing  music  upon  a  dumb 
piano.     Who  plays,  would  fain  be  heard. 


CHAPTER   XIV.     . 

1  WUTHERING   HEIGHTS  ! '    ITS    ORIGIN. 

A  gray  old  Parsonage  standing  among  graves, 
remote  from  the  world  .on  its  wind-beaten  hill- 
top, all  round  the  neighboring  summits  wild 
with  moors;  a  lonely  place  among  half-dead 
ash-trees  and  stunted  thorns,  the  world  cut  off 
on  one  side  by  the  still  ranks  of  the  serried 
dead,  and  distanced  on  the  other  by  mile-long 
stretches  of  heath  :  such,  we  know,  was  Emily 
Brontes  home. 

An  old,  blind,  disillusioned  father,  once  prone 
to  an  extraordinary  violence  of  temper,  but  now 
grown  quiet  with  age,  showing  his  disappoint- 
ment with  life  by  a  melancholy  cynicism  that 
was  quite  sincere ;  two  sisters,  both  beloved, 
one,  fired  with  genius  and  quick  to  sentiment, 
hiding  her  enthusiasm  under  the  cold  demeanor 
of  the  ex-governess,  unsuccessful,  and  unrecog- 
nized ;  the  other  gentler,  dearer,  fairer,  slowly 
dying,  inch  by  inch,  of  the  blighting  neighbor- 
hood of  vice ;  one  brother,  scarce  less  dear,  of 
set  purpose  drinking   himself   to  death   out  of- 


'  WUTHERING  HEIGHTS: 


207 


furious  thwarted  passion  for  a  mistress  that  he 
might  not  marry :  these  were  the  members  of 
Emily  Bronte's  household. 

Herself  we  know :  inexperienced,  courageous, 
passionate,  and  full  of  pity.  Was  it  wonderful 
that  she  summed  up  life  in  one  bitter  line?  — 

"  Conquered  good  and  conquering  ill." 

Her  own  circumstances  proved  the  axiom 
true,  and  of  other  lives  she  had  but  little  knowl- 
edge. Whom  should  she  ask  ?  The  gentle 
Ellen  who  seemed  of  another  world,  and  yet  had 
plentiful  troubles  of  her  own  ?  The  curates  she 
despised  for  their  narrow  priggishness  ?  The 
people  in  the  village  of  whom  she  knew  nothing 
save  when  sickness,  wrong,  or  death  summoned 
her  to  their  homes  to  give  help  and  protection  ? 
Her  life  had  given  only  one  view  of  the  world, 
and  she  could  not  realize  that  there  were  others 
which  she  had  not  seen. 

"  I  am  bound  to  avow,"  says  Charlotte,  "  that 
she  had  scarcely  more  practical  knowledge  of 
the  peasantry  among  whom  she  lived  than  a  nun 
has  of  the  country  people  that  pass  her  convent 
gates.  My  sister's  disposition  was  not  naturally 
gregarious ;  circumstances  favored  and  fostered 
her  tendency  to  seclusion ;  except  to  go  to 
church,  or  to  take  a  walk  on  the  hills,  she  rarely 
crossed   the   threshold   of   home.     Though    her 


208  EMILY  BRONTE. 

feeling  for  the  people  round  her  was  benevolent, 
intercourse  with  them  she  never  sought,  nor, 
with  very  few  exceptions,  ever  experienced ;  and 
yet  she  knew  them,  knew  their  ways,  their  lan- 
guage, their  family  histories ;  she  could  hear  of 
them  with  rnterest  and  talk  of  them  with  detail, 
minute,  graphic,  and  accurate ;  but  with  them 
she  rarely  exchanged  a  word.  Hence  it  ensued 
that  what  her  mind  had  gathered  of  the  real 
concerning  them  was  too  exclusively  confined 
to  those  tragic  and  terrible  traits  of  which,  in 
listening  to  the  secret  annals  of  every  rude 
vicinage,  the  memory  is  sometimes  compelled  to 
receive  the  impress.  Her  imagination,  which 
was  a  spirit  more  sombre  than  sunny,  more  pow- 
erful than  sportive,  found  in  such  traits  materials 
whence  it  wrought  creations  like  Heathcliff,  like 
Earnshaw,  like  Catharine.  Having  formed  these 
beings,  she  did  not  know  what  she  had  done.  If 
the  auditors  of  her  work,  when  read  in  manu- 
script, shuddered  under  the  grinding  influence  of 
natures  so  relentless  and  implacable  —  of  spirits 
so  lost  and  fallen  ;  if  it  was  complained  that  the 
mere  hearing  of  certain  vivid  and  fearful  scenes 
banished  sleep  by  night  and  disturbed  mental 
peace  by  day,  Ellis  Bell  would  wonder  what  was 
meant  and  suspect  the  complainant  of  affecta- 
tion. Had  she  but  lived,  her  mind  would  of 
itself  have  grown  like  a  strong  tree  —  loftier  and 


■  W  [/THE RING  HEIGHTS: 


209 


straighter,  wider  spreading  —  and  its  matured 
fruits  would  have  attained  a  mellower  ripening 
and  sunnier  bloom ;  but  on  that  mind  time  and 
experience  alone  could  work,  to  the  influence 
of  other  intellects  it  was  not  amenable."  l 

Yet  no  human  being  is  wholly  free,  none 
wholly  independent,  of  surroundings.  And 
Emily  Bronte  least  of  all  could  claim  such  im- 
munity. We  can  with  difficulty  just  imagine 
her  a  prosperous  heiress,  loving  and  loved,  high- 
spirited  and  even  hoydenish  ;  but  with  her  cava- 
lier fantasy  informed  by  a  gracious  splendor 
all  her  own,  we  can  just  imagine  Emily  Bronte 
as  Shirley  Keeldar,  but  scarcely  Shirley  Keeldar 
writing  'Wuthering  Heights.'  Emily  Bronte 
away  from  her  moors,  her  loneliness,  her  poverty, 
her  discipline,  her  companionship  with  genius, 
violence,  and  degradation,  would  have  taken 
another  color,  as  hydrangeas  grow  now  red,  now 
blue,  according  to  the  nature  of  the  soil.  It  was 
not  her  lack  of  knowledge  of  the  world  that  made 
the  novel  she  wrote  become  '  Wuthering  Heights,' 
not  her  inexperience,  but  rather  her  experience, 
limited  and  perverse,  indeed,  and  specialized  by 
a  most  singular  temperament,  yet  close  and  very 
real.  Her  imagination  was  as  much  inspired 
by  the  circumstances  of  her  life,  as  was  Anne's 
when  she  wrote  the  'Tenant  of  Wildfell  Hall,' 

1  'Memoir.'    Charlotte  Bronte. 


2  i  o  EMIL  Y  BRONTE. 

or  Charlotte's  in  her  masterpiece  'Villette'; 
but,  as  in  each  case  the  imagination  was  of  a 
different  quality,  experience,  acting  upon  it,  pro- 
duced a  distinct  and  dissimilar  result ;  a  result 
obtained  no  less  by  the  contrariety  than  by  the 
harmony  of  circumstance.  For  our  surround- 
ings affect  us  in  two  ways ;  subtly  and  perma- 
nently, tingeing  us  through  and  through  as  wine 
tinges  water,  or,  by  some  violent  neighborhood 
of  antipathetic  force,  sending  us  off  at  a  tangent 
as  far  as  possible  from  the  antagonistic  presence 
that  so  detestably  environs  us.  The  fact  that 
Charlotte  Bronte  knew  chiefly  clergymen  is 
largely  responsible  for  '  Shirley,'  that  satirical 
eulogy  of  the  Church  and  apotheosis  of  Sunday- 
school  teachers.  But  Emily,  living  in  this  same 
clerical  evangelistic  atmosphere,  is  revolted, 
forced  to  the  other  extreme  ;  and,  while  shelter- 
ing her  true  opinions  from  herself  under  the 
all-embracing  term  "Broad  Church,"  we  find  in 
her  writings  no  belief  so  strong  as  the  belief 
in  the  present  use  and  glory  of  life ;  no  love  so 
great  as  her  love  for  earth  —  earth  the  mother 
and  grave ;  no  assertion  of  immortality,  but  a 
deep  certainty  of  rest.  There  is  no  note  so 
often  struck  in  all  her  work,  and  struck  with 
such  variety  of  emphasis,  as  this  :  that  good  for 
goodness'  sake  is  desirable,  evil  for  evil's  sake 
detestable,  and  that  for  the  just  and  the  unjust 
alike  there  is  rest  in  the  grave. 


1  WUTHERING  HEIGHTS:  2II 

This  quiet  clergyman's  daughter,  always  hear- 
ing evil  of  Dissenters,  has  therefore  from  pure 
courage  and  revolted  justice  become  a  dissenter 
herself.  A  dissenter  in  more  ways  than  one. 
Never  was  a  nature  more  sensitive  to  the  stu- 
pidities and  narrowness  of  conventional  opinion, 
a  nature  more  likely  to  be  found  in  the  ranks  of 
the  opposition ;  and  with  such  a  nature  indigna- 
tion is  the  force  that  most  often  looses  the  gate 
of  speech.  The  impulse  to  reveal  wrongs  and 
sufferings  as  they  really  are  is  overwhelmingly 
strong  ;  although  the  revelation  itself  be  imper- 
fect. What,  then,  would  this  inexperienced  York- 
shire parson's  daughter  reveal  ?  The  unlikeness 
of  life  to  the  authorized  pictures  of  life ;  the  force 
of  evil,  only  conquerable  by  the  slow-revolving 
process  of  nature  which  admits  not  the  eternal 
duration  of  the  perverse  \  the  grim  and  fearful 
lessons  of  heredity  ;  the  sufficiency  of  the  finite 
to  the  finite,  of  life  to  life,  with  no  other  re- 
ward than  the  conduct  of  life  fulfils  to  him 
that  lives  ;  the  all-penetrating  kinship  of  living 
things,  heather-sprig,  singing  lark,  confident 
child,  relentless  tyrant ;  and,  not  least,  not  least 
to  her  already  in  its  shadow,  the  sure  and  uni- 
versal peace  of  death. 

A  strange  evangel  from  such  a  preacher  ;  but 
a  faith  evermore  emphasized  and  deeper  rooted 
in  Emily's  mind  by  her  incapacity  to  acquiesce  in 


212  EMILY  BRONTE. 

the  stiff,  pragmatic  teaching,  the  narrow  preju- 
dice, of  the  Calvinists  of  Haworth.  Yet  this  very 
Calvinism  influenced  her  ideas,  this  doctrine  she 
so  passionately  rejected,  calling  herself  a  disciple 
of  the  tolerant  and  thoughtful  Frederick  Maurice, 
and  writing,  in  defiance  of  its  flames  and  shriek- 
ings,  the  most  soothing  consolations  to  mortality 
that  I  remember  in  our  tongue. 

Nevertheless,  so  dual-natured  is  the  force  of 
environment,  this  antagonistic  faith,  repelling  her 
to  the  extreme  rebound  of  belief,  did  not  send  her 
out  from  it  before  she  had  assimilated  some  of 
its  sternest  tenets.  From  this  doctrine  of  re- 
ward and  punishment  she  learned  that  for  every 
unchecked  evil  tendency  there  is  a  fearful  expia- 
tion ;  though  she  placed  it  not  indeed  in  the 
flames  of  hell,  but  in  the  perverted  instincts  of 
our  own  children.  Terrible  theories  of  doomed 
incurable  sin  and  predestined  loss  warned  her 
that  an  evil  stock  will  only  beget  contamination  : 
the  children  of  the  mad  must  be  liable  to  mad- 
ness ;  the  children  of  the  depraved,  bent  towards 
depravity ;  the  seed  of  the  poison-plant  springs 
up  to  blast  and  ruin,  only  to  be  overcome  by 
uprooting  and  sterilization,  or  by  the  judicious 
grafting,  the  patient  training  of  many  years. 

Thus  prejudiced  and  evangelical  Haworth  had 
prepared  the  woman  who  rejected  its  Hebraic 
dogma,  to  find   out  for  herself   the  underlying 


'  WUTHERING  HEIGHTS: 


213 


truths.  She  accepted  them  in  their  full  signifi- 
cance. It  has  been  laid  as  a  blame  to  her  that 
she  nowhere  shows  any  proper  abhorrence  of  the 
fiendish  and  vindictive  Heathcliff.  She  who  re- 
veals him  remembers  the  dubious  parentage  of 
that  forsaken  seaport  baby,  "  Lascar  or  Gipsy  ; " 
she  remembers  the  Ishmaelitish  childhood,  too 
mlich  loved  and  hated,  of  the  little  interloper 
whose  hand  was  against  every  man's  hand.  Re- 
membering this,  she  submits  as  patiently  to 
his  swarthy  soul  and  savage  instincts  as  to  his 
swarthy  skin  and  "  gibberish  that  nobody  could 
understand."  From  thistles  you  gather  no  grapes. 
No  use,  she  seems  to  be  saying,  in  waiting  for 
the  children  of  evil  parents  to  grow,  of  their  own 
will  and  unassisted,  straight  and  noble.  The  very 
quality  of  their  will  is  as  inherited  as  their  eyes 
and  hair.  Heathcliff  is  no  fiend  or  goblin  ;  the 
untrained  doomed  child  of  some  half-savage 
sailor's  holiday,  violent  and  treacherous.  And 
how  far  shall  we  hold  the  sinner  responsible  for 
a  nature  which  is  itself  the  punishment  of  some 
forefather's  crime  ?  Even  for  such  there  must  be 
rest.  No  possibility  in  the  just  and  reverent 
mind  of  Emily  Bronte  that  the  God  whom  she 
believed  to  be  the  very  fount  and  soul  of  life 
could  condemn  to  everlasting  fire  the  victims  of 
morbid  tendencies  not  chosen  by  themselves. 
No    purgatory,    and    no    everlasting    flame,   is 


214 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


needed  to  purify  the  sins  of  Heathcliff;  his 
grave  on  the  hillside  will  grow  as  green  as  any- 
other  spot  of  grass,  moor-sheep  will  find  the 
grass  as  sweet,  heath  and  harebells  will  grow 
of  the  same  color  on  it  as  over  a  baby's  grave. 
For  life  and  sin  and  punishment  end  with  death 
to  the  dying  man  ;  he  slips  his  burden  then  on 
to  other  shoulders,  and  no  visions  mar  his  rest. 

"  I  wondered  how  any  one  could  ever  imagine 
unquiet  slumbers  for  the  sleepers  in  that  quiet 
earth."  So  ends  the  last  page  of  'Wuthering 
Heights.' 

So  much  for  the  theories  of  life  and  evil  that 
the  clash  of  circumstance  and  character  struck 
out  from  Emily  Bronte.  It  happened,  as  we 
know,  that  she  had  occasion  to  test  these  theo- 
ries ;  and  but  for  that  she  could  never  have  writ- 
ten '  Wuthering  Heights.'  Not  that  the  story, 
the  conception,  would  have  failed.  After  all 
there  is  nothing  more  appalling  in  the  violent 
history  of  that  upland  farm  than  many  a  mid- 
land manor  set  thick  in  elms,  many  a  wild 
country-house  of  Wales  or  Cornwall,  could  un- 
fold. Stories  more  socially  painful  than  the 
mere  brute  violence  of  the  Earnshaws  ;  of  mad- 
ness and  treachery,  stories  of  girls  entrapped  un- 
willingly into  a  lunatic  marriage  that  the  estate 
might  have  an  heir  ;  legends  of  fearful  violence, 
of  outcast  children,  dishonored  wives,  horrible 


i  WUTHERING  HEIGHTS:  215 

and  persistent  evil.  Who,  in  the  secret  places  of 
his  memory,  stores  not  up  such  haunting  gossip  ? 
And  Emily,  familiar  with  all  the  wild  stories  of 
Haworth  for  a  century  back,  and  nursed  on 
grisly  Irish  horrors,  tales  of  1798,  tales  of  op- 
pression and  misery,  Emily,  with  all  this  eerie 
lore  at  her  finger-ends,  would  have  the  less  diffi- 
culty in  combining  and  working  the  separate 
motives  into  a  consistent  whole,  that  she  did  not 
know  the  real  people  whose  histories  she  knew 
by  heart.  No  memory  of  individual  manner, 
dominance  or  preference  for  an  individual  type, 
caught  and  disarranged  her  theories,  her  concep- 
tion being  the  completer  from  her  ignorance. 
This  much  her  strong  reason  and  her  creative 
power  enabled  her  to  effect.  But  this  is  not  all. 
This  is  the  plot  ;  but  to  make  a  character 
speak,  act,  rave,  love,  live,  die,  through  a  whole 
lifetime  of  events,  even  as  the  readers  feel  con- 
vinced he  must  have  acted,  must  have  lived  and 
died,  this  demands  at  least  so  much  experience 
of  a  somewhat  similar  nature  as  may  serve  for  a 
base  to  one's  imagination,  a  reserve  of  certainty 
and  reassurance  on  which  to  draw  in  times  of 
perplexity  and  doubt.  Branwell,  who  sat  to 
Anne  sorrily  enough  for  the  portrait  of  Henry 
Huntingdon,  served  his  sister  Emily,  not  indeed 
as  a  model,  a  thing  to  copy,  but  as  a  chart  of 
proportions  by  which  to  measure,  and  to  which 


2l6  EMILY  BRONTE. 

to  refer,  for  correct  investiture,  the  inspired  idea. 
Mr.  Wemyss  Reid  (whose  great  knowledge  of 
the  Bronte  history  and  still  greater  kindness  in 
admitting  me  to  his  advantages  as  much  as 
might  be,  I  cannot  sufficiently  acknowledge)  — 
this  capable  critic  perceives  a  bond  fide  resem- 
blance between  the  character  of  Heathcliff  and 
the  character  of  Branwell  Bronte  as  he  appeared 
to  his  sister  Emily.  So  much,  bearing  in  mind 
the  verse  concerning  the  leveret,  I  own  I  cannot 
see.  Branwell  seems  to  me  more  nearly  akin  to 
HeathclhTs  miserable  son  than  to  Heathcliff. 
But  that,  in  depicting  Heathcliff's  outrageous 
thwarted  love  for  Catharine,  Emily  did  draw 
upon  her  experience  of  her  brother's  suffering, 
this  extract  from  an  unpublished  lecture  of  Mr. 
Reid's  will  sufficiently  reveal : * 

"  It  was  in  the  enforced  companionship  of  this 
lost  and  degraded  man  that  Emily  received,  I  am 
sure,  many  of  the  impressions  which  were  subse- 
quently conveyed  to  the  pages  of  her  book.  Has 
it  not  been  said  over  and  over  again  by  critics  of 
every  kind  that  '  Wuthering  Heights  '  reads  like 
the  dream  of  an  opium-eater  ?  And  here  we 
find  that  during  the  whole  time  of  the  writing 
of  the  book  an  habitual  and  avowed  opium-eater 
was  at  Emily's  elbow.  I  said  that  perhaps  the 
most  striking  part  of  '  Wuthering  Heights '  was 
1   '  Emily  Bronte.'      T.  Wemyss  Reid. 


'WUTHERING  HEIGHTS: 


217 


that  which  deals  with  the  relations  of  Heathcliff 
and  Catharine  after  she  had  become  the  wife  of 
another.  Whole  pages  of  the  story  are  filled 
with  the  ravings  and  ragings  of  the  villain 
against  the  man  whose  life  stands  between  him 
and  the  woman  he  loves.  Similar  ravings  are  to 
be  found  in  all  the  letters  of  Branwell  Bronte 
written  at  this  period  of  his  career ;  and  we  may 
be  sure  that  similar  ravings  were  always  on  his 
lips  as,  moody  and  more  than  half  mad,  he  wan- 
dered about  the  rooms  of  the  parsonage  at  Ha- 
worth.  Nay,  I  have  found  some  striking  verbal 
coincidences  between  Branwell's  own  language 
and  passages  in  'Wuthering  Heights.'  In  one 
of  his  own  letters  there  are  these  words  in  refer- 
ence to  the  object  of  his  passion:  'My  own  life 
without  her  will  be  hell.  What  can  the  so-called 
love  of  her  wretched  sickly  husband  be  to  her 
compared  with  mine  ? '  Now,  turn  to  '  Wuther- 
ing Heights '  and  you  will  read  these  words  : 
'  Two  words  would  comprehend  my  future  — 
death  and  hell  ;  existence  after  losing  her  would 
be  hell.  Yet  I  was  a  fool  to  fancy  for  a  moment 
that  she  valued  Edgar  Linton's  attachment  more 
than  mine.  If  he  loved  with  all  the  powers  of 
his  puny  being,  he  could  n't  love  in  eighty  years 
as  much  as  I  could  in  a  day.' " 

So  much  share  in  '  Wuthering  Heights '  Bran- 
well  certainly  had.     He  was  a  page  of  the  book 


21 8  EMILY  BRONTE. 

in  which  his  sister  studied  ;  he  served,  as  to  an 
artist's  temperament  all  things  unconsciously 
serve,  for  the  rough  block  of  granite  out  of  which 
the  work  is  hewn,  and,  even  while  with  difficulty 
enduring  his  vices,  Emily  undoubtedly  learned 
from  them  those  darker  secrets  of  humanity  ne- 
cessary to  her  tragic  incantation.  They  served 
her,  those  dreaded,  passionate  outbreaks  of  her 
brother's,  even  as  the  moors  she  loved,  the  fancy 
she  courted,  served  her.  Strange  divining  wand 
of  genius,  that  conjures  gold  out  of  the  miriest 
earth  of  common  life  ;  strange  and  terrible  fac- 
ulty laying  up  its  stores  and  half-mechanically 
drawing  its  own  profit  out  of  our  slightest  or 
most  miserable  experiences,  noting  the  gesture 
with  which  the  mother  hears  of  her  son's  ruin, 
catching  the  faint  varying  shadow  that  the  white 
wind-shaken  window-blind  sends  over  the  dead 
face  by  which  we  watch,  drawing  its  life  from 
a  thousand  deaths,  humiliations,  losses,  with  a 
hand  in  our  sharpest  joys  and  bitterest  sorrows  ; 
this  faculty  was  Emily  Bronte's,  and  drew  its 
profit  from  her  brother's  shame. 

Here  ended  Branwell's  share  in  producing 
'  Wuthering  Heights.'  But  it  is  not  well  to  ig- 
nore his  claim  to  its  entire  authorship  ;  for  in 
the  contemptuous  silence  of  those  who  know 
their  falsity,  such  slanders  live  and  thrive  like 
unclean  insects  under  fallen  stones.     The  vain 


♦  WUTHERING  HEIGHTS: 


219 


boast  of  an  unprincipled  dreamer,  half-mad  with 
opium,  half-drunk  with  gin,  meaning  nothing  but 
the  desire  to  be  admired  at  any  cost,  has  been 
given  too  much  prominence  by  those  lovers  of 
sensation  who  prefer  any  startling  lie  to  an  old 
truth.  Their  ranks  have  been  increased  by  the 
number  of  those  who,  ignorant  of  the  true  cir- 
cumstances of  Emily's  life,  found  it  impossible 
that  an  inexperienced  girl  could  portray  so  much 
violence  and  such  morbid  passion.  On  the  con- 
trary, given  these  circumstances,  none  but  a 
personally  inexperienced  girl  could  have  treated 
the  subject  with  the  absolute  and  sexless  purity 
which  we  find  in  '  Wuthering  Heights.'  How  in- 
fecte,  commonplace,  and  ignominious  would  Bran- 
well,  relying  on  his  own  recollections,  have  made 
the  thwarted  passion  of  a  violent  adventurer  for 
a  woman  whose  sickly  husband  both  despise  ! 
That  purity  as  of  polished  steel,  as  cold  and 
harder  than  ice,  that  freedom  in  dealing  with 
love  and  hate,  as  audacious  as  an  infant's  love 
for  the  bright  flame  of  fire,  could  only  belong  to 
one  whose  intensity  of  genius  was  rivalled  by 
the  narrowness  of  her  experience  —  an  experi- 
ence limited  not  only  by  circumstances,  but  by  a 
nature  impervious  to  any  fierier  sentiment  than 
the  natural  love  of  home  and  her  own  people,  be- 
ginning before  remembrance  and  as  unconscious 
as  breathing. 


220  EMILY  BRONTE. 

The  critic,  having  Emily's  poems  and  the  few 
remaining  verses  and  letters  of  Branwell,  cannot 
doubt  the  incapacity  of  that  unnerved  and  gar- 
rulous prodigal  to  produce  a  work  of  art  so  sus- 
tained, passionate,  and  remote.  For  in  no  respect 
does  the  terse,  fiery,  imaginative  style  of  Emily 
resemble  the  weak,  disconnected,  now  vulgar, 
now  pretty  mannerisms  of  Branwell.  There  is, 
indeed,  scant  evidence  that  the  writer  of  Ermly's 
poems  could  produce  '  Wuthering  Heights  ; '  but 
there  is,  at  any  rate,  the  impossibility  that  her 
work  could  be. void  of  fire,  concentration,  and 
wild  fancy.  As  great  an  impossibility  as  that 
vulgarity  and  tawdriness  should  not  obtrude  their 
ugly  heads  here  and  there  from  under  Branwell's 
finest  phrases.  And  since  there  is  no  single  vul- 
gar, trite,  or  Micawber-like  effusion  throughout 
'  Wuthering  Heights  ; '  and  since  Heathcliff's 
passion  is  never  once  treated  in  the  despicable 
would-be  worldly  fashion  in  which  Branwell  de- 
scribes his  own  sensations,  and  since  at  the  time 
that  '  Wuthering  Heights '  was  written  he  was 
manifestly,  and  by  his  own  confession,  too  phys- 
ically prostrate  for  any  literary  effort,  we  may 
conclude  that  Branwell  did  not  write  the  book. 

On  the  other  side  we  have  not  only  the  literary 
evidence  of  the  similar  qualities  in  'Wuthering 
Heights '  and  in  the  poems  of  Ellis  Bell,  but  the 
express  and   reiterated   assurance   of  Charlotte 


«  WUTHERING  HEIGHTS:  22I 

Bronte,  who  never  even  dreamed,  it  would  seem, 
that  it  could  be  supposed  her  brother  wrote  the 
book ;  the  testimony  of  the  publishers  who 
made  their  treaty  with  Ellis  Bell ;  of  the  servant 
Martha  who  saw  her  mistress  writing  it ;  and  — 
most  convincing  of  all  to  those  who  have  appre- 
ciated the  character  of  Emily  Bronte  —  the  im- 
possibility that  a  spirit  so  upright  and  so  careless 
of  ,fame  should  commit  a  miserable  fraud  to 
obtain  it. 

Indeed,  so  baseless  is  this  despicable  rumor 
that  to  attack  it  seems  absurd,  only  sometimes 
it  is  wise  to  risk  an  absurdity.  Puny  insects, 
left  too  long  unhurt,  may  turn  out  dangerous 
enemies  irretrievably  damaging  the  fertile  vine 
on  which  they  fastened  in  the  security  of  their 
minuteness. 

To  the  three  favoring  circumstances  of  Emily's 
masterpiece,  which  we  have  already  mentioned 

—  the  neighborhood  of  her  home,  the  character 
of  her  disposition,  the  quality  of  her  experience 

—  a  fourth  must  be  added,  inferior  in  degree, 
and  yet  not  absolutely  unimportant.  This  is  her 
acquaintance  with  German  literature,  and  espe- 
cially with  Hoffmann's  tales.  In  Emily  Bronte's 
day,  Romance  and  Germany  had  one  signifi- 
cance ;  it  is  true  that  in  London  and  in  prose  the 
German  influence  was  dying  out,  but  in  distant 
Haworth,  and  in  the  writings  of  such  poets  as 


222  EMILY  BRONTE. 

Emily  would  read,  in  Scott,  in  Southey,  most  of 
all  in  Coleridge,  with  whose  poems  her  own  have 
so  distinct  an  affinity,  it  is  still  predominant.  Of 
the  materialistic  influence  of  Italy,  of  atheist 
Shelley,  Byron  with  his  audacity  and  realism, 
sensuous  Keats,  she  would  have  little  experience 
in  her  remote  parsonage.  And,  had  she  known 
them,  they  would  probably  have  made  no  impres- 
sion on  a  nature  only  susceptible  to  kindred  influ- 
ences. Thackeray,  her  sister's  hero,  might  have 
never  lived  for  all  the  trace  of  him  we  find  in 
Emily's  writings ;  never  is  there  any  single  allu- 
sion in  her  work  to  the  most  eventful  period  of 
her  life,  that  sight  of  the  lusher  fields  and  taller 
elms  of  middle  England  ;  that  glimpse  of  hurry- 
ing vast  London  ;  that  night  on  the  river,  the 
sun  slipping  behind  the  masts,  doubly  large 
through  the  mist  and  smoke  in  which  the  houses, 
bridges,  ships,  are  all  spectral  and  dim.  No  hint 
of  this,  nor  of  the  sea,  nor  of  Belgium,  with  its 
quaint  foreign  life  ;  nor  yet  of  that  French  style 
and  method  so  carefully  impressed  upon  her  by 
Monsieur  Heger,  and  which  so  decidedly  moulded 
her  elder  sister's  art.  But  in  the  midst  of  her 
business  at  Haworth  we  catch  a  glimpse  of  her 
reading  her  German  book  at  night,  as  she  sits 
on  the  hearthrug  with  her  arm  round  Keeper's 
neck ;  glancing  at  it  in  the  kitchen,  where  she  is 
making  bread,  with  the  volume  of   her  choice 


'WUTHERING  HEIGHTS: 


223 


propped  up  before  her ;  and  by  the  style  of  the 
novel  jotted  down  in  the  rough,  almost  simulta- 
neously with  her  reading,  we  know  that  to  her 
the  study  of  German  was  not  —  like  French  and 
music  —  the  mere  necessary  acquirement  of  a 
governess,  but  an  influence  that  entered  her 
mind  and  helped  to  shape  the  fashion  of  her 
thoughts. 

So  much  preface  is  necessary  to  explain,  not 
the  genius  of  Emily  Bronte,  but  the  conditions 
of  that  genius  —  there  is  no  use  saying  more. 
The  aim  of  my  writing  has  been  missed  if  the 
circumstances  of  her  career  are  not  present  in 
the  mind  of  my  reader.  It  is  too  late  at  this 
point  to  do  more  than  enumerate  them,  and 
briefly  point  to  their  significance.  Such  criticism, 
in  face  of  the  living  work,  is  all  too  much  like 
glancing  in  a  green  and  beautiful  country  at  a 
map,  from  which  one  may,  indeed,  ascertain  the 
roads  that  lead  to  it  and  away,  and  the  size  of 
the  place  in  relation  to  surrounding  districts,  but 
which  can  give  no  recognizable  likeness  of  the 
scene  which  lies  all  round  us,  with  its  fresh  life 
forgotten  and  its  beauty  disregarded.  Therefore 
let  us  make  an  end  of  theory  and  turn  to  the 
book  on  which  our  heroine's  fame  is  stationed, 
fronting  eternity.  It  may  be  that  in  unravelling 
its  story  and  noticing  the  manner  in  which  its 
facts  of  character  and  circumstance  impressed 


224 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


her  mind,  we  may,  for  a  moment,  be  admitted  to 
a  more  thorough  and  clearer  insight  into  its 
working  than  we  could  earn  by  the  completest 
study  of  external  evidence,  the  most  earnest  and 
sympathizing  criticism. 


I 

CHAPTER   XV. 

*  WUTHERING    HEIGHTS  I '    THE    STORY. 

On  the  summit  of  Haworth  Hill,  beyond  the 
street,  stands  a  gray  stone  house,  which  is  shown 
as  the  original  of  '  Wuthering  Heights.'  A  few 
scant  and  wind-baffled  ash-trees  grow  in  front, 
the  moors  rise  at  the  back  stretching  away  for 
miles.  It  is  a  house  of  some  pretensions,  once 
the  parsonage  of  Grimshaw,  that  powerful  Wes- 
leyan  preacher  who,  whip  in  hand,  used  to  visit 
the  "  Black  Bull "  on  Sunday  morning  and  lash 
the  merrymakers  into  chapel  to  listen  to  his  ser- 
mon. Somewhat  fallen  from  its  former  preten- 
sions, it  is  a  farmhouse  now,  with  much  such 
an  oak-lined  and  stone-floored  house-place  as  is 
described  in  '  Wuthering  Heights.'  .  Over  the 
door  there  is,  moreover,  a  piece  of  carving :  H.  E. 
1659,  a  close  enough  resemblance  to  "Hare- 
ton  Earnshaw,  1500"  —  but  the  "wilderness  of 
crumbling  griffins  and  shameless  little  boys " 
are  nowhere  to  be  found.  Neither  -do  we  notice 
"  the  excessive  slant  of  a  few  stunted  firs  at  the 
end  of  the  house  and  a  range  of  gaunt  thorns  all 

is 


226  EMIL  V  'BRONTE. 

stretching  their  limbs  one  way  as  if  craving  alms 
of  the  sun,"  and,  to  my  thinking,  this  fine  old 
farm  of  Sowdens  is  far  too  near  the  mills  of 
Haworth  to  represent  the  God-forsaken,  lonely 
house  of  Emily's  fancy.  Having  seen  the  place, 
as  in  duty  bound,  one  returns  more  than  ever 
impressed  by  the  fact  that  while  every  individual 
and  every  site  in  Charlotte's  novels  can  be 
clearly  identified,  Emily's  imagination  and  her 
power  of  drawing  conclusions  are  alone  respon- 
sible for  the  character  of  her  creations.  This 
is  not  saying  that  she  had  no  data  to  go  upon. 
Had  she  not  seen  Sowdens,  and  many  more  such 
houses,  she  would  never  have  invented  '  Wither- 
ing Heights ; '  the  story  and  passion  of  Branwell 
set  on  her  fancy  to  imagine  the  somewhat  simi- 
lar story  and  passion  of  Heathcliff.  But  in  the 
process  of  her  work,  the  nature  of  her  creations 
completely  overmastered  the  facts  and  memories 
which  had  induced  her  to  begin.  These  were 
but  the  handful  of  dust  which  she  took  to  make 
her  man  ;  and  the  qualities  and  defects  of  her 
masterpiece  are  both  largely  accounted  for  when 
we  remember  that  her  creation  of  character  was 
quite  unmodified  by  any  attempt  at  portraiture. 

Therefore  in  '  Wuthering  Heights '  it  is  with 
a  story,  a  fancy  picture,  that  we  have  to  deal ;  in 
drawing  and  proportion  not  unnatural,  but  cer- 
tainly not  painted  after  nature.  To  quote  her 
sister's  beautiful  comments  — 


<  WUTHERING  HEIGHTS.' 


227 


"'  Wuthering  Heights'  was  hewn  in  a  wild 
workshop,  with  simple  tools,  out  of  homely  mate- 
rials. The  statuary  found  a  granite  block  on  a 
solitary  moor  ;  gazing  thereon  he  saw  how  from 
the  crag  might  be  elicited  a  head,  savage,  swart, 
sinister;  a  form  moulded  with  at  least  one  ele- 
ment of  grandeur — power.  He  wrought  with  a 
rude  chisel,  and  from  no  model  but  the  vision  of 
his  meditations.  With  time  and  labor  the  crag 
took  human  shape  ;  and  there  it  stands  colossal, 
dark  and  frowning,  half-statue,  half-rock  ;  in  the 
former  sense,  terrible  and  goblin-like ;  in  the 
latter,  almost  beautiful,  for  its  coloring  is  of 
mellow  gray,  and  moorland  moss  clothes  it ; 
and  heath,  with  its  blooming  bells  and  balmy 
fragrance,  grows  faithfully  close  to  the  giant's 
foot." 

Of  the  rude  chisel  we  find  plentiful  traces  in 
the  first  few  chapters  of  the  book.  The  man- 
agement of  the  narrative  is  singularly  clumsy, 
introduced  by  a  Mr.  Lockwood  —  a  stranger  to 
the  North,  an  imaginary  misanthropist,  who  has 
taken  a  grange  on  the  moor  to  be  out  of  the  way 
of  the  world  —  and  afterwards  continued  to  him 
by  his  housekeeper  to  amuse  the  long  leisures  of 
a  winter  illness.  But,  passing  over  this  initial 
awkwardness  of  conception,  we  find  a  manner 
equal  to  the  matter  and  somewhat  resent  Char- 
lotte's eloquent  comparison ;  for  there  are  touches, 


228  EMILY  BRONTE. 

fine  and  delicate,  that  only  a  practised  hand  may- 
dare  to  give,  and  there  is  feeling  in  the  book,  not 
only  "  terrible  and  goblin-like,"  but  patient  and 
constant,  sprightly  and  tender,  consuming  and 
passionate.  We  find,  getting  over  the  inexperi- 
enced beginning,  that  the  style  of  the  work  is 
noble  and  accomplished,  and  that  —  far  from 
being  a  half-hewn  and  casual  fancy,  a  head  sur- 
mounting a  trunk  of  stone  —  its  plan  is  thought 
out  with  scientific  exactness,  no  line  blurred,  no 
clue  forgotten,  the  work  of  an  intense  and  poetic 
temperament  whose  vision  is  too  vivid  to  be 
incongruous. 

The  first  four  chapters  of  'Wuthering  Heights' 
are  merely  introductory.  They  relate  Mr.  Lock- 
wood's  visit  there,  his  surprise  at  the  rudeness 
of  the  place  in  contrast  with  the  foreign  air  and 
look  of  breeding  that  distinguished  Mr.  Heath- 
cliff  and  his  beautiful  daughter-in-law.  He  also 
noticed  the  profound  moroseness  and  ill-temper 
of  everybody  in  the  house.  Overtaken  by  a 
snow-storm,  he  was,  however,  constrained  to  sleep 
there,  and  was  conducted  by  the  housekeeper 
to  an  old  chamber,  long  unused,  where  (since  at 
first  he  could  not  sleep)  he  amused  himself  by 
looking  over  a  few  mildewed  books  piled  on  one 
corner  of  the  window-ledge.  They  and  the  ledge 
were  scrawled  all  over  with  writing,  Catharine 
Earnshaw,  sometimes  varied  to  Catharine  Heath- 


1  WUTHERING  HEIGHTS?  229 

cliff,  and  again  to  Catharine  Linton.  Nothing 
save  these  three  names  was  written  on  the  ledge, 
but  the  books  were  covered  in  every  fly-leaf  and 
margin  with  a  pen-and-ink  commentary,  a  sort  of 
diary,  as  it  proved,  scrawled  in  a  childish  hand. 
Mr.  Lockwood  spent  the  first  portion  of  the 
night  in  deciphering  this  faded  record  ;  a  string 
of  childish  mishaps  and  deficiencies  dated  a  quar- 
ter of  a  century  ago.  Evidently  this  Catharine 
Earnshaw  must  have  been  one  of  Heathcliffs 
kin,  for  he  figured  in  the  narrative  as  her  fellow- 
scapegrace,  and  the  favorite  scapegoat  of  her 
elder  brother's  wrath.  After  some  time  Mr. 
Lockwood  fell  asleep,  to  be  troubled  by  harass- 
ing dreams,  in  one  of  which  he  fancied  that 
this  childish  Catharine  Earnshaw,  or  rather  her 
spirit,  was  knocking  and  scratching  at  the  fir- 
scraped  window-pane,  begging  to  be  let  in.  Over- 
come with  the  intense  horror  of  nightmare,  he 
screamed  aloud  in  his  sleep.  Waking  suddenly 
up  he  found  to  his  confusion  that  his  yell  had 
been  heard,  for  Heathcliff  appeared,  exceedingly 
angry  that  any  one  had  been  allowed  to  sleep  in 
the  oak-closeted  room. 

"'If  the  little  fiend  had  got  in  at  the  window 
she  probably  would  have  strangled  me,'  I  re- 
turned. .  .  .  '  Catharine  Linton  or  Earnshaw, 
or  however  she  was  called  —  she  must  have  been 
a  changeling,  wicked  little  soul !     She  told   me 


2  SO 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


she  had  been  walking  the  earth  these  twenty- 
years ;  a  just  punishment  for  her  mortal  trans- 
gressions, I've  no  doubt.' 

"  Scarcely  were  these  words  uttered  when  I 
recollected  the  association  of  Heathcliff's  with 
Catharine's  name  in  the  books.  ...  I  blushed  at 
my  inconsideration  —  but,  without  showing  fur- 
ther consciousness  of  the  offence,  I  hastened  to 
add,  '  The  truth  is,  sir,  I  passed  the  first  part 
of  the  night  in — '  Here  I  stopped  afresh  —  I 
was  about  to  say  '  perusing  those  old  volumes,' 
then  it  would  have  revealed  my  knowledge  of 
their  written  as  well  as  their  printed  contents  ; 
so  I  went  on, '  in  spelling  over  the  name  scratched 
on  that  window-ledge  :  a  monotonous  occupation 
calculated  to  set  me  asleep,  like  counting,  or — ' 
'  What  can  you  mean  by  talking  in  this  way  to 
me!'  thundered  Heathcliff  with  savage  vehe- 
mence. '  How  —  how  dare  you,  under  my  roof? 
God !  he's  mad  to  speak  so ! '  And  he  struck 
his  forehead  with  rage. 

"  I  did  not  know  whether  to  resent  this  lan- 
guage or  pursue  my  explanation  ;  but  he  seemed 
so  powerfully  affected  that  I  took  pity  and  pro- 
ceeded with  my  dreams.  .  .  .  Heathcliff  grad- 
ually fell  back  into  the  shelter  of  the  bed,  as  I 
spoke ;  finally  sitting  down  almost  concealed 
behind  it.  I  guessed,  however,  by  his  irregular 
and  intercepted  breathing,  that  he  struggled  to 


<  WUTHERING  HEIGHTS: 


231 


vanquish  an  excess  of  violent  emotion.  Not  lik- 
ing to  show  him  that  I  had  heard  the  conflict, 
I  continued  my  toilette  rather  noisily  .  .  .  and 
soliloquized  on  the  length  of  the  night.  'Not 
three  o'clock  yet !  I  could  have  taken  oath  it 
had  been  six.  Time  stagnates  here  :  we  must 
surely  have  retired  to  rest  at  eight ! ' 

" '  Always  at  nine  in  winter,  and  rise  at  four,' 
said  my  host,  suppressing  a  groan  ;  and,  as  I 
fancied,  by  the  motion  of  his  arm's  shadow,  dash- 
ing a  tear  from  his  eyes.  '  Mr.  Lockwood,'  he 
added,  'you  may  go  into  my  room  :  you'll  only 
be  in  the  way,  coming  down-stairs  so  early.  .  .  . 
Take  the  candle  and  go  where  you  please.  I 
shall  join  you  directly.  Keep  out  of  the  yard, 
though,  the  dogs  are  unchained  ;  and  the  house 
—  Juno  mounts  sentinel  there,  and  —  nay,  you 
can  only  ramble  about  the  steps  and  passages. 
But,  away  with  you  !     I'll  come  in  two  minutes.' 

"  I  obeyed,  so  far  as  to  quit  the  chamber  ; 
when,  ignorant  where  the  narrow  lobbies  led,  I 
stood  still,  and  was  witness,  involuntarily,  to  a 
piece  of  superstition  on  the  part  of  my  landlord 
which  belied  oddly  his  apparent  sense.  He  got 
on  to  the  bed,  and  wrenched  open  the  lattice, 
bursting,  as  he  pulled  at  it,  into  an  uncontrol- 
lable passion  of  tears.  '  Come  in  !  come  in  ! '  he 
sobbed,  'Cathy,  do  come!  Oh,  my  heart's  dar- 
ling !  hear   me   this  time,   Catharine,  at   last ! ' 


232 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


The  spectre  showed  a  spectre's  ordinary  caprice : 
it  gave  no  sign  of  being ;  but  the  snow  and 
wind  whirled  wildly  through,  even  reaching  my 
station,  and  blowing  out  the  light. 

"There  was  such  anguish  in  the  gush  of  grief 
that  accompanied  this  raving,  that  my  compas- 
sion made  me  overlook  its  folly,  and  I  drew  off, 
half  #angry  to  have  listened  at  all,  and  vexed  at 
having  related  my  ridiculous  nightmare,  since  it 
produced  that  agony ;  though  why  was  beyond 
my  comprehension." 

Mr.  Lockwood  got  no  clue  to  the  mystery  at 
'  Wuthering  Heights  ; '  and  later  on  returned  to 
Thrushcross  Grange,  to  fall  ill  of  a  lingering 
fever.  During  his  recovery  he  heard  the  his- 
tory of  his  landlord,  from  his  housekeeper,  who 
had  been  formerly  an  occupant  of  '  Wuthering 
Heights,'  and  after  that,  for  many  years,  the 
chief  retainer  at  Thrushcross  Grange,  where 
young  Mrs.  Heathcliff  used  to  live  when  she 
still  was  Catharine  Linton. 

"  Do  you  know  anything  of  Mr.  Heathcliff's 
story  ? "  said  Mr.  Lockwood  to  his  housekeeper, 
Nelly  Dean. 

"  It's  a  cuckoo's,  sir,"  she  answered. 

It  is  at  this  point  that  the  history  of  'Wuther- 
ing Heights'  commences,  that  violent  and  bitter 
history  of  the  "  little  dark  thing  harbored  by  a 
good  man  to  his  bane,"  carried  over  the  thresh- 


'  W  UTHE RING  HEIGHTS: 


233 


old,  as  Christabel  lifted  Geraldine,  out  of  pity  for 
the  weakness  which,  having  grown  strong,  shall 
crush  the  hand  that  helped  it ;  carried  over  the 
threshold,  as  evil  spirits  are  carried,  powerless  to 
enter  of  themselves,  and  yet  no  evil  demon,  only  a 
human  soul  lost  and  blackened  by  tyranny,  injus- 
tice, and  congenital  ruin.  The  story  of  '  Wither- 
ing Heights'  is  the  story  of  Heathcliff.  It  begins 
with  the  sudden  journey  of  the  old  squire,  Mr. 
Earnshaw,  to  Liverpool  one  summer  morning  at 
the  beginning  of  harvest.  He  had  asked  the 
children  each  to  choose  a  present,  "only  let  it  be 
little,  for  I  shall  walk  there  and  back,  sixty  miles 
each  way  :"  and  the  son  Hindley,  a  proud,  high- 
spirited  lad  of  fourteen,  had  chosen  a 'fiddle; 
six-year-old  Cathy,  a  whip,  for  she  could  ride 
any  horse  in  the  stable  ;  and  Nelly  Dean,  their 
humble  playfellow  and  runner  of  errands,  had 
been  promised  a  pocketful  of  apples  and  pears. 
It  was  the  third  night  since  Mr.  Earnshaw's 
departure,  and  the  children,  sleepy  and  tired, 
had  begged  their  mother  to  let  them  sit  up  a 
little  longer  —  yet  a  little  longer  —  to  welcome 
their  father,  and  see  their  new  presents.  At 
last  —  just  about  eleven  o'clock  —  Mr.  Earnshaw 
came  back,  laughing  and  groaning  over  his  fa- 
tigue ;  and  opening  his  greatcoat,  which  he  held 
>undled  up  in  his  arms,  he  cried  : 
" '  See  here,  wife  !  I  was  never  so  beaten  with 


234 


EMILY  BROXTE. 


anything  in  my  life :  but  you  must  e'en  take  it 
as  a  gift  of  God  ;  though  it's  as  dark  almost  as 
if  it  came  from  the  devil.' 

"  We  crowded  round,  and  over  Miss  Cathy's 
head  I  had  a  peep  at  a  dirty,  ragged,  black-haired 
child  ;  big  enough  both  to  walk  and  talk  ;  in- 
deed, its  face  looked  older  than  Catharine's ;  yet, 
when  it  was  set  on  its  feet,  it  only  stared  round 
and  repeated  over  and  over  again  some  gibberish 
that  nobody  could  understand.  I  was  frightened, 
and  Mrs.  Earnshaw  was  ready  to  fling  it  out 
of  doors  :  she  did  fly  up,  asking  how  he  could 
fashion  to  bring  that  gypsy  brat  into  the  house 
when  they  had  their  own  bairns  to  feed  and  fend 
for  ?  What  he  meant  to  do  with  it,  and  whether 
he  were  mad  ?  The  master  tried  to  explain  the 
matter  ;  but  he  was  really  half  dead  with  fatigue, 
and  all  that  I  could  make  out,  amongst  her 
scolding,  was  a  tale  of  his  seeing  it  starving  and 
houseless,  and  as  good  as  dumb,  in  the  streets 
of  Liverpool,  where  he  picked  it  up  and  inquired 
for  its  owner.  Not  a  soul  knew  to  whom  it  be- 
longed, he  said  ;  and  his  money  and  time  being 
both  limited,  he  thought  it  better  to  take  it  home 
with  him  at  once,  than  run  into  vain  expenses 
there  ;  because  he  was  determined  he  would  not 
leave  it  as  he  found  it." 

So  the  child  entered  '  Wuthering  Heights,'  a 
cause  of  dissension  from  the  first.     Mrs.  Earn- 


1  WUTHERING  HEIGHTS:  235 

shaw  grumbled  herself  calm  ;  the  children  went 
to  bed  crying,  for  the  fiddle  had  been  broken 
and  the  whip  lost  in  carrying  the  little  stranger 
for  so  many  miles.  But  Mr.  Earnshaw  was 
determined  to  have  his  protegi  respected  ;  he 
cuffed  saucy  little  Cathy  for  making  faces  at  the 
new-comer,  and  turned  Nelly  Dean  out  of  the 
house  for  having  set  him  to  sleep  on  the  stairs 
because  the  children  would  not  have  him  in 
their  bed.  And  when  she  ventured  to  return 
some  days  afterwards,  she  found  the  child  adopted 
into  the  family,  and  called  by  the  name  of  a 
son  who  had  died  in  childhood  —  Heathcliff. 

Nevertheless,  he  had  no  enviable  position. 
Cathy,  indeed,  was  very  thick  with  him,  and  the 
master  had  taken  to  him  strangely,  believing 
every  word  he  said,  "  for  that  matter  he  said 
precious  little,  and  generally  the  truth,"  but 
Mrs.  Earnshaw  disliked  the  little  interloper,  and 
never  interfered  in  his  behalf  when  Hindley, 
who  hated  him,  thrashed  and  struck  the  sullen, 
patient  child,  who  never  complained,  but  bore 
all  his  bruises  in  silence.  This  endurance  made 
old  Earnshaw  furious  when  he  discovered  the 
persecutions  to  which  this  mere  baby  was  sub- 
jected; the  child  soon  discovered  it  to  be  a  most 
efficient  instrument  of  vengeance. 

"  I  remember  Mr.  Earnshaw  once  bought  a 
couple  of  colts  at  the  parish  fair,  and  gave  the 


236  EMILY  BRONTE. 

lads  each  one.  Heathcliff  took  the  handsomest, 
but  it  soon  fell  lame,  and  when  he  discovered  it, 
he  said  to  Hindley :  'You  must  exchange  horses 
with  me,  I  don't  like  mine ;  and  if  you  don't  I 
shall  tell  your  father  of  the  three  thrashings 
you've  given  me  this  week,  and  show  him  my 
arm  which  is  black  to  the  shoulder.'  Hindley 
put  out  his  tongue,  and  cuffed  him  over  the  ears. 
f  You'd  better  do  it  at  once,'  he  persisted,  es- 
caping to  the  porch  (they  were  in  the  stable). 
'  You'll  have  to ;  and  if  I  speak  of  these  blows 
you'll  get  them  back  with  interest.'  '  Off,  dog  ! ' 
cried  Hindley,  threatening  him  with  an  iron 
weight,  used  for  weighing  potatoes  and  hay. 
'  Throw  it,'  he  replied,  standing  still,  '  and  then 
I'll  tell  how  you  boasted  you  would  turn  me  out 
of  doors  as  soon  as  he  died,  and  see  whether  he 
will  not  turn  you  out  directly.'  Hindley  threw 
it,  hitting  him  on  the  breast,  and  down  he  fell, 
but  staggered  up  immediately,  breathless  and 
white  ;  and  had  not  I  prevented  it,  he  would 
have  gone  just  so  to  the  master  and  got  full 
revenge  by  letting  his  condition  plead  for  him, 
intimating  who  had  caused  it.  '  Take  my  colt, 
gypsy,  then,' said  young  Earnshaw.  'And  I  pray 
that  he  may  break  your  neck  ;  take  him  and  be 
damned,  you  beggarly  interloper !  and  wheedle 
my  father  out  of  all  he  has :  only  afterwards 
show  him  what  you  are,  imp  of  Satan.  And 
take  that ;  I  hope  he'll  kick  out  your  brains  1 ' 


'WUTH  BRING  HEIGHTS.' 


237 


"  Heathcliff  had  gone  to  loose  the  beast  and 
shift  it  to  his  own  staH ;  he  was  passing  behind 
it  when  Hindley  finished  his  speech  by  knocking 
him  under  its  feet,  and,  without  stopping  to  ex- 
amine whether  his  hopes  were  fulfilled,  ran  away 
as  fast  as  he  could.  I  was  surprised  to  witness 
how  coolly  the  child  gathered  himself  up  and 
went  on  with  his  intention  ;  exchanging  saddles 
and  all,  and  then  sitting  down  on  a  bundle  of 
hay  to  overcome  the  qualm  which  the  violent 
blow  occasioned,  before  he  entered  the  house. 
I  persuaded  him  easily  to  let  me  lay  the  blame 
of  his  bruises  on  the  horse :  he  heeded  little 
what  tale  was  told  so  that  he  had  what  he 
wanted.  He  complained  so  seldom,  indeed,  of 
such  things  as  these  that  I  really  thought  him 
not  vindictive  ;  I  was  deceived  completely,  as 
you  will  hear." 

So  the  division  grew.  This  malignant,  un- 
complaining child,  with  foreign  skin  and  Eastern 
soul,  could  only  breed  discord  in  that  Yorkshire 
home.  He  could  not  understand  what  was  hon- 
orable by  instinct  to  an  English  mind.  He  was 
quick  to  take  an  advantage,  long-suffering,  sly, 
nursing  his  revenge  in  silence  like  a  vindictive 
slave,  until  at  last  the  moment  of  retribution 
should  be  his  ;  sufficiently  truthful  and  brave  to 
have  grown  noble  in  another  atmosphere,  but 
with  a  ready  bent  to  underhand  and  brooding 


238 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


vengeance.  Insensible,  it  seemed,  to  gratitude. 
Proud  with  the  unreasoning  pride  of  an  Orien- 
tal ;  cruel,  and  violently  passionate.  One  soft 
and  tender  speck  there  was  in  this  dark  and 
sullen  heart ;  it  was  an  exceedingly  great  and 
forbearing  love  for  the  sweet,  saucy,  naughty 
Catharine. 

But  this  one  affection  only  served  to  augment 
the  mischief  that  he  wrought.  He  who  had 
estranged  son  from  father,  husband  from  wife, 
severed  brother  from  sister  as  completely  ;  for 
Hindley  hated  the  swarthy  child  who  was  Cathy's 
favorite  companion.  When  Mrs.  Earnshaw  died, 
two  years  after  Heathcliff's  advent,  Hindley  had 
learned  to  regard  his  father  as  an  oppressor  rather 
than  a  friend,  and  Heathcliff  as  an  intolerable 
usurper.  So,  from  the  very  beginning,  he  bred 
bad  feeling  in  the  house. 

In  the  course  of  time  Mr.  Earnshaw  began  to 
fail.  His  strength  suddenly  left  him,  and  he 
grew  half  childish,  irritable,  and  extremely  jeal- 
ous of  his  authority.  He  considered  any  slight 
to  Heathcliff  as  a  slight  to  his  own  discretion  ; 
so  that,  in  the  master's  presence,  the  child  was 
deferred  to  and  courted  from  respect  for  that 
master's  weakness,  while,  behind  his  back,  the 
old  wrongs,  the  old  hatred,  showed  themselves 
unquenched.  And  so  the  child  grew  up  bitter 
and  distrustful.     Matters  got  a  little  better  for  a 


*  WUTHERING  HEIGHTS: 


239 


while,  when  the  untamable  Hindley  was  sent  to 
college  ;  yet  still  there  was  disturbance  and  dis- 
quiet, for  Mr.  Earnshawdid  not  love  his  daughter 
Catharine,  and  his  heart  was  yet  further  imbit- 
tered  by  the  grumbling  and  discontent  of  old 
Joseph  the  servant ; ,  the  wearisomest,  "  self- 
righteous  Pharisee  that  ever  ransacked  a  Bible 
to  take  the  promises  to  himself  and  fling  the 
curses  to  his  neighbors."  But  Catharine,  though 
slighted  for  Heathcliff,  and  nearly  always  in 
trouble  on  his  account,  was  much  too  fond  of 
him  to  be  jealous.  "  The  greatest  punishment 
we  could  invent  for  her  was  to  keep  her  separate 
from  Heathcliff.  .  .  .  Certainly  she  had  ways 
with  her  such  as  I  never  saw  a  child  take  up 
before  ;  and  she  put  all  of  us  past  our  patience 
fifty  times  and  oftener  in  a  day ;  from  the  hour 
she  came  down-stairs  till  the  hour  she  went 
to  bed,  we  hadn't  a  minute's  security  that  she 
wouldn't  be  in  mischief.  Her  spirits  were  always 
at  high-water  mark,  her  tongue  always  going  — 
singing,  laughing,  and  plaguing  everybody  who 
would  not  do  the  same.  A  wild,  wicked  slip  she 
was  ;  but  she  had  the  bonniest  eye,  the  sweetest 
smile,  and  the  lightest  foot  in  the  parish.  And 
after  all,  I  believe,  she  meant  no  harm  ;  for,  when 
once  she  made  you  cry  in  good  earnest,  it  seldom 
happened  that  she  wouldn't  keep  your  company 
and  oblige  you  to  be  quiet  that  you  might  com- 


240 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


fort  her.  In  play  she  liked  exceedingly  to  act 
the  little  mistress,  using  her  hands  freely  and 
commanding  her  companions." 

Suddenly  this  pretty,  mischievous  sprite  was 
left  fatherless  ;  Mr.  Earnshaw  died  quietly,  sit- 
ting in  his  chair  by  the  fireside  one  October 
evening.  Mr.  Hindley,  now  a  young  man  of 
twenty,  came  home  to  the  funeral,  to  the  great 
astonishment  of  the  household  bringing  a  wife 
with  him. 

A  rush  of  a  lass,  spare  and  bright-eyed,  with  a 
changing,  hectic  color,  hysterical,  and  full  of  fan- 
cies, fickle  as  the  winds,  now  flighty  and  full  of 
praise  and  laughter,  now  peevish  and  languish- 
ing. For  the  rest,  the  very  idol  of  her  husband's 
heart.  A  word  from  her,  a  passing  phrase  of 
dislike  for  Heathcliff,  was  enough  to  revive  all 
young  Earnshaw's  former  hatred  of  the  boy. 
Heathcliff  was  turned  out  of  their  society,  no 
longer  allowed  to  share  Cathy's  lessons,  degraded 
to  the  position  of  an  ordinary  farm-servant.  At 
first  Heathcliff  did  not  mind.  Cathy  taught  him 
what  she  learned,  and  played  or  worked  with 
him  in  the  fields.  Cathy  ran  wild  with  him,  and 
had  a  share  in  all  his  scrapes  ;  they  both  bade 
fair  to  grow  up  regular  little  savages,  while  Hind- 
ley  Earnshaw  kissed  and  fondled  his  young  wife, 
utterly  heedless  of  their  fate. 

An  adventure  suddenly  changed  the  course  of 


'WUTHERING  HEIGHTS: 


241 


their  lives.  One  Sunday  evening  Cathy  and 
Heathcliff  ran  down  to  Thrushcross  Grange  to 
peep  through  the  windows  and  see  how  the  little 
Lintons  spent  their  Sundays.  They  looked  in, 
and  saw  Isabella  at  one  end  of  the,  to  them, 
splendid  drawing-room,  and  Edgar  at  the  other, 
both  in  floods  of  tears,  peevishly  quarrelling.  So 
elate  were  the  two  little  savages  from  Wuthering 
Heights  at  this  proof  of  their  neighbors'  inferi- 
ority, that  they  burst  into  peals  of  laughter.  The 
little  Lintons  were  terrified,  and,  to  frighten  them 
still  more,  Cathy  and  Heathcliff  made  a  variety 
of  frightful  noises  ;  they  succeeded  in  terrifying 
not  only  the  children  but  their  silly  parents,  who 
imagined  the  yells  to  come  from  a  gang  of  bur- 
glars, determined  on  robbing  the  house.  They 
let  the  dogs  loose,  in  this  belief,  and  the  bulldog 
seized  Cathy's  bare  little  ankle,  for  she  had  lost 
her  shoes  in  the  bog.  While  Heathcliff  was 
trying  to  throttle  off  the  brute,  the  man-servant 
came  up,  and,  taking  both  the  children  prisoner, 
conveyed  them  into  the  lighted  hall.  There,  to 
the  humiliation  and  surprise  of  the  Lintons,  the 
lame  little  vagrant  was  discovered  to  be  Miss 
Earnshaw,  and  her  fellow-misdemeanant,  "  that 
strange  acquisition  my  late  neighbor  made  in  his 
journey  to  Liverpool  —  a  little  Lascar,  or  an 
American  or  Spanish  castaway." 

Cathy  stayed  five  weeks  at  Thrushcross  Grange 
16 


242 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


by  which  time  her  ankle  was  quite  well,  and  her 
manners  much  improved.  Young  Mrs.  Earn- 
shaw  had  tried  her  best,  during  this  visit,  to  en- 
deavor by  a  judicious  mixture  of  fine  clothes  and 
flattery  to  raise  the  standard  of  Cathy's  self- 
respect.  She  went  home,  then,  a  beautiful  and 
finely  dressed  young  lady,  to  find  Heathcliff  in 
equal  measure  deteriorated  ;  the  mere  farm- 
servant,  whose  clothes  were  soiled  with  three 
months'  service  in  mire  and  dust,  with  unkempt 
hair  and  grimy  face  and  hands. 

"  *  Heathcliff,  you  may  come  forward,'  cried 
Mr.  Hindley,  enjoying  his  discomfiture,  and  grati- 
fied to  see  what  a  forbidding  young  blackguard 
he  would  be  compelled  to  present  himself.  '  You 
may  come  and  wish  Miss  Catharine  welcome, 
like  the  other  servants.'  Cathy,  catching  a 
glimpse  of  her  friend  in  his  concealment,  flew 
to  embrace  him,  she  bestowed  seven  or  eight 
kisses  on  his  cheek  within  the  second,  and  then 
stopped,  and,  drawing  back,  burst  into  a  laugh, 
exclaiming :  '  Why,  how  very  black  and  cross 
you  look  !  and  how  —  how  funny  and  grim  ! 
But  that's  because  I'm  used  to  Edgar  and  Isa- 
bella Linton.' 

"'Well,  Heathcliff,  have  you  forgotten  me? 
Shake  hands,  Heathcliff,'  said  Mr.  Earnshaw, 
condescendingly,  'once  in  a  way,  that  is  per- 
mitted.' 


'  WUTHERING  HEIGHTS. 


243 


"'I  shall  not,'  replied  the  boy,  finding  his 
tongue  at  last.  '  I  shall  not  stand  to  be  laughed 
at.     I  shall  not  bear  it.'" 

From  this  time  Catharine's  friendship  with 
Heathcliff  was  chequered  by  intermittent  jeal- 
ousy on  his  side  and  intermittent  disgust  upon 
hers  ;  and  for  this  evil  turn,  far  more  than  for 
any  coarser  brutality,  Heathcliff  longed  for  re- 
venge on  Hindley  Earnshaw.  Meanwhile  Edgar 
Linton,  greatly  smitten  with  the  beautiful  Catha- 
rine, went  from  time  to  time  to  visit  at  Wuther- 
ing  Heights.  He  would  have  gone  far  oftener, 
but  that  he  had  a  terror  of  Hindley  Earnshaw's 
reputation,  and  shrank  from  encountering  him. 

For  this  fine  young  Oxford  gentleman,  this 
proud  young  husband,  was  sinking  into  worse 
excesses  than  any  of  his  wild  Earnshaw  ances- 
tors. A  defiant  sorrow  had  driven  him  to  des- 
peration. In  the  summer  following  Catharine's 
visit  to  Thrushcross  Grange,  his  only  son  and 
heir  had  been  born.  An  occasion  of  great  re- 
joicings, suddenly  dashed  by  the  discovery  that 
his  wife,  his  idol,  was  fast  sinking  in  consump- 
tion. Hindley  refused  to  believe  it,  and  his  wife 
kept  her  flighty  spirits  till  the  end  ;  but  one 
night,  while  leaning  on  his  shoulder,  a  fit  of 
coughing  took  her,  —  a  very  slight  one.  She 
put  her  two  hands  about  his  neck,  her  face 
changed,  and  she  was  dead. 


244 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


Hindley  grew  desperate,  and  gave  himself  over 
to  wild  companions,  to  excesses  of  dissipation, 
and  tyranny.  "  His  treatment  of  Heathcliff  was 
enough  to  make  a  fiend  of  a  saint."  Heathcliff 
bore  it  with  sullen  patience,  as  he  had  borne  the 
blows  and  kicks  of  his  childhood,  turning  them 
into  a  lever  for  extorting  advantages  ;  the  aches 
and  wants  of  his  body  were  redeemed  by  a  fierce 
joy  at  heart,  for  in  this  degradation  of  Hindley 
Earnshaw  he  recognized  the  instrument  of  his 
own  revenge. 

Time  went  on,  ever  making  a  sharper  difference 
between  this  gypsy  hind  and  his  beautiful  young 
mistress  ;  time  went  on,  leaving  the  two  fast 
friends  enough,  but  leaving  also  in  the  heart  of 
Heathcliff  a  passionate  rancor  against  the  man 
who,  of  set  purpose,  had  made  him  unworthy  of 
Catharine's  hand,  and  of  the  other  man  on  whom 
it  was  to  be  bestowed. 

For  Edgar  Linton  was  infatuated  with  the 
naughty,  tricksy  young  beauty  of  Wuthering 
Heights.  Her  violent  temper  did  not  frighten 
him,  although  his  own  character  was  singularly 
sweet,  placid,  and  feeble ;  her  compromising 
friendship  with  such  a  mere  boor  as  young 
Heathcliff  was  only  a  trifling  annoyance,  easily 
to  be  excused.  And  when  his  own  father  and 
mother  died  of  a  fever  caught  in  nursing  her  he 
did  not  love  her  less  for  the  sorrow  she  brought. 


«  WUTHERING  HEIGHTS:  245 

A  fever  she  had  wilfully  taken  in  despair,  and  a 
sudden  sickness  of  life.  One  evening  pretty 
Cathy  came  into  the  kitchen  to  tell  Nelly  Dean 
that  she  had  engaged  herself  to  marry  Edgar 
Linton.  Heathcliff,  unseen,  was  seated  on  the 
other  side  the  settle,  on  a  bench  by  the  wall, 
quite  hidden  from  those  at  the  fireside. 

Cathy  was  very  elated,  but  not  at  all  happy. 
Edgar  was  rich,  handsome,  young,  gentle,  pas- 
sionately in  love  with  her  ;  still  she  was  misera- 
ble. Nelly  Dean,  who  was  nursing  the  baby 
Hareton  by  the  fire,  finally  grew  out  of  patience 
with  her  whimsical  discontent. 

"  '  Your  brother  will  be  pleased,'  "  she  said  ; 
"'  the  old  lady  and  gentleman  will  not  object,  I 
think  ;  you  will  escape  from  a  disorderly,  com- 
fortless home  into  a  wealthy,  respectable  one  ; 
and  you  love  Edgar,  and  Edgar  loves  you.  All 
seems  smooth  and  easy  ;  where  is  the  obstacle  ? ' 

"  •  Here !  and  here  ! '  replied  Catharine,  strik- 
ing one  hand  on  her  forehead  and  the  other  on 
her  breast.  '  In  whichever  place  the  soul  lives. 
In  my  soul  and  in  my  heart  I'm  convinced  I'm 
wrong.' 

" '  That's  very  strange.  I  cannot  make  it 
out.' 

"  '  It's  my  secret.  But  if  you  will  not  mock 
at  me,  I'll  explain  it.  I  can't  do  it  distinctly ; 
but  I'll  give  you  a  feeling  of  how  I  feel.' 


246  EMILY  BROXTE. 

"  She  seated  herself  by  me  again  ;  her  coun- 
tenance grew  sadder  and  graver,  and  her  clasped 
hands  trembled. 

"  *  Nelly,  do  you  never  dream  queer  dreams  ? ! 
she  said,  suddenly,  after  some  minutes'  reflection. 

"  'Yes,  now  and  then,'  I  answered. 

"'And  so  do  I.  I've  dreamt  in  my  life 
dreams  that  have  stayed  with  me  ever  after 
and  changed  my  ideas  ;  they've  gone  through 
and  through  me  like  wine  through  water,  and 
altered  the  color  of  my  mind.  And  this  is  one  : 
I'm  going  to  tell  it,  but  take  care  not  to  smile  at 
any  part  of  it.' 

"  '  Oh,  don't,  Miss  Catharine,'  I  cried.  '  We're 
dismal  enough  without  conjuring  up  ghosts  and 
visions  to  perplex  us  .  .  .' 

"  She  was  vexed,  but  she  did  not  proceed.  Ap- 
parently taking  up  another  subject,  she  recom- 
menced in  a  short  time. 

"  '  If  I  were  in  heaven,  Nelly,  I  should  be  ex- 
tremely miserable.' 

"  '  Because  you  are  not  fit  to  go  there,'  I  an- 
swered ;  '  all  sinners  would  be  miserable  in 
heaven.' 

" '  But  it  is  not  that.  I  dreamt  once  that  I  was 
there.' 

"  '  I  tell  you,  I  won't  hearken  to  your  dreams, 
Miss  Catharine.  I'll  go  to  bed,'  I  interrupted 
again. 


1  Wi'THERIXG   HEIGHTS: 


247 


"  She  laughed,  and  held  me  down,  for  I  made  a 
motion  to  leave  my  chair. 

" '  This  is  nothing,'  cried  she  ;  '  I  was  only  go- 
ing to  say  that  heaven  did  not  seem  to  be  any 
home  ;  and  I  broke  my  heart  with  weeping  to 
come  back  to  earth  ;  and  the  angels  were  so 
angry  that  they  flung  me  out  into  the  middle  of 
the  heath  on  the  top  of  Wuthering  Heights, 
where  I  woke  sobbing  for  joy.  That  will  do  to 
explain  my  secret  as  well  as  the  other.  I've  no 
more  business  to  marry  Edgar  Linton  than  I 
have  to  be  in  heaven ;  and  if  the  wicked  man 
in  there  hadn't  brought  Heathcliff  so  low,  I 
shouldn't  have  thought  of  it.  It  would  degrade 
me  to  marry  Heathcliff  now,  so  he  shall  never 
know  how  I  love  him  ;  and  that,  not  because  he's 
handsome,  Nelly,  but  because  he's  more  myself 
than  I  am.  Whatever  our  souls  are  made  of, 
his  and  mine  are  the  same ;  and  Linton's  is  as 
different  as  a  moonbeam  from  lightning,  or  frost 
from  fire.' 

"  Ere  this  speech  ended,  I  became  sensible  of 
Heathcliff' s  presence.  Having  noticed  a  slight 
movement,  I  turned  my  head,  and  saw  him  rise 
from  the  bench  and  steal  out  noiselessly.  He 
had  listened  till  he  had  heard  Catharine  say  that 
it  would  degrade  her  to  marry  him,  and  then  he 
stayed  to  hear  no  further.  My  companion,  sit- 
ting on  the  ground,  was  prevented  by  the  back 


248  EMILY  BRONTE. 

of  the  settle  from  remarking  his  presence  or  de- 
parture ;  but  I  started,  and  bade  her  hush. 

"'Why?'  she  asked,  gazing  nervously  round. 

"'Joseph  is  here,'  I  answered,  catching  oppor- 
tunely the  roll  of  his  cart-wheels  up  the  road, 
'and  Heathcliff  will  be  coming  in  with  him.  .  .  . 
Unfortunate  creature,  as  soon  as  you  become 
Mrs.  Linton  he  loses  friend  and  love  and  all. 
Have  you  considered  how  you'll  bear  the  sepa- 
ration, and  how  he'll  bear  to  be  quite  deserted 
in  the  world  ?     Because,  Miss  Catharine  .  .  .' 

"  '  He  quite  deserted  !  we  separated  ! '  she  ex- 
claimed, with  an  accent  of  indignation.  'Who 
is  to  separate  us,  pray!  They'll  meet  the- fate 
of  Milo.  Not  as  long  as  I  live,  Ellen  ;  for  no 
mortal  creature.  Every  Linton  on  the  face  of 
the  earth  might  melt  into  nothing,  before  I 
could  consent  to  forsake  Heathcliff.  .  .  .  My 
great  miseries  in  this  world  have  been  Heath- 
cliff's  miseries,  and  I  watched  and  felt  each  from 
the  beginning.  My  great  thought  in  living  is 
himself.  If  all  else  perished,  and  he  remained, 
/  should  still  continue  to  be  ;  and  if  all  else 
remained  and  he  were  annihilated,  the  universe 
would  turn  to  a  mighty  stranger :  I  should  not 
seem  a  part  of  it.  My  love  for  Linton  is  like 
the  foliage  in  the  woods  :  time  will  change  it, 
I'm  well  aware,  as  winter  changes  the  trees. 
My  love  for  Heathcliff  resembles   the   eternal 


<  WUTHERING  HEIGHTS? 


249 


rocks  beneath  ;  a  source  of  little  visible  delight, 
but  necessary.  Nelly,  I  am  Heathcliff.  He's 
always,  always  in  my  mind  :  not  as  a  pleasure, 
any  more  than  I  am  always  a  pleasure  to  myself, 
but  as  my  own  being.  So  don't  talk  of  our 
separation  again  ;  it  is  impracticable  ;  and  — ' 

"  She  paused,  and  hid  her  face  in  the  folds  of 
my  gown  ;  but  I  jerked  it  forcibly  away.  I  was 
out  of  patience  with  her  folly." 

Poor  Cathy !  beautiful,  haughty,  and  capri- 
cious ;  who  should  guide  and  counsel  her  ?  her 
besotted,  drunken  brother  ?  the  servant  who  did 
not  love  her  and  was  impatient  of  her  weather- 
cock veerings  ?  No.  And  Heathcliff,  who,  bru- 
talized and  rude  as  he  was,  at  least  did  love  and 
understand  her?  Heathcliff,  who  had  walked 
out  of  the  house,  her  rejection  burning  in  his 
ears,  not  to  enter  it  till  he  was  fitted  to  exact 
both  love  and  vengeance.  He  did  not  come 
back  that  night,  though  the  thunder  rattled 
and  the  rain  streamed  over  Wuthering  Heights  ; 
though  Cathy,  shawlless  in  the  wind  and  wet, 
stood  calling  him  through  the  violent  storms 
that  drowned  and  baffled  her  cries. 

All  night  she  would  not  leave  the  hearth,  but 
lay  on  the  settle  sobbing  and  moaning,  all  soaked 
as  she  was,  with  her  hands  on  her  face  and  her 
face  to  the  wall.  A  strange  augury  for  her  mar- 
riage, these  first  dreams  of  her  affianced  love  — 


2$Q 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


not  dreams,  indeed,  but  delirium  ;  for  the  next 
morning  she  was  burning  and  tossing  in  fever, 
near  to  death's  door  as  it  seemed. 

But  she  won  through,  and  Edgar's  parents 
carried  her  home  to  nurse.  As  we  know,  they 
took  the  infection  and  died  within  a  few  days 
of  each  other.  Nor  was  this  the  only  ravage 
that  the  fever  made.  Catharine,  always  hasty 
and  fitful  in  temper,  was  henceforth  subject  at 
rare  intervals  to  violent  and  furious  rages,  which 
threatened  her  life  and  reason  by  their  extrem- 
ity. The  doctor  said  she  ought  not  to  be 
crossed  ;  she  ought  to  have  her  own  way,  and 
it  was  nothing  less  than  murder  in  her  eyes  for 
any  one  to  presume  to  stand  up  and  contradict 
her.  But  the  strained  temper,  the  spoiled,  au- 
thoritative ways,  the  saucy  caprices  of  his  bride, 
were  no  blemishes  in  Edgar  Linton's  eyes.  "He 
was  infatuated,  and  believed  himself  the  happiest 
man  alive  on  the  day  he  led  her  to  Gimmerton 
Chapel  three  years  subsequent  to  his  father's 
death." 

Despite  so  many  gloomy  auguries  the  mar- 
riage was  a  happy  one  at  first.  Catharine  was 
petted  and  humored  by  every  one,  with  Edgar 
for  a  perpetual  worshipper ;  his  pretty,  weak- 
natured  sister  Isabella  as  an  admiring  com- 
panion ;  and  for  the  necessary  spectator  of  her 
happiness,  Nelly  Dean,  who  had  been  induced 
to  quit  her  nursling  at  Wuthering  Heights. 


'WUTHERING  HEIGHTS:  25 1 

Suddenly  Heathcliff  returned,  not  the  old 
Heathcliff,  but  a  far  more  dangerous  enemy,  a 
tall,  athletic,  well-formed  man,  intelligent  and 
severe.  "A  half-civilized  ferocity  lurked  yet 
in  the  depressed  brows  and  eyes,  full  of  black 
fire,  but  it  was  subdued  ;  and  his  manner  was 
even  dignified,  though  too  stern  for  grace."  A. 
formidable  rival  for  boyish  Edgar  Linton,  with 
his  only  son's  petulance,  constitutional  timidity, 
and  weak  health.  Cathy,  though  she  was  really 
attached  to  her  husband,  gave  him  cruel  pain  by 
her  undisguised  and  childish  delight  at  Heath- 
cliff's  return  ;  he  had  a  presentiment  that  evil 
would  come  of  the  old  friendship  thus  revived, 
and  would  willingly  have  forbidden  Heathcliff 
the  house  ;  but  Edgar,  so  anxious  lest  any  cross 
be  given  to  his  wife,  with  a  double  reason  then 
for  tenderly  guarding  her  health,  could  not  in- 
flict a  serious  sorrow  upon  her  with  only  a  base- 
less jealousy  for  its  excuse.  Thus,  Heathcliff 
became  intimate  at  Thrushcross  Grange,  the 
second  house  to  which  he  was  made  welcome, 
the  second  hearth  he  meant  to  ruin.  At  this 
time  he  was  lodging  at  Wuthering  Heights. 
On  his  return  he  had  first  intended,  he  told 
Catharine,  "just  to  have  one  glimpse  of  your 
face,  a  stare  of  surprise,  perhaps,  and  pretended 
pleasure ;  afterwards  settle  my  score  with  Hind- 
ley  ;  and  then  prevent  the  law  by  doing  execu- 
tion on  myself." 


252 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


Catharine's  welcome  changed  this  plan ;  her 
brother  was  safe  from  Heathcliff's  violence,  but 
not  from  his  hate.  The  score  was  being  set- 
tled in  a  different  fashion.  Hindley  —  who  was 
eager  to  get  money  for  his  gambling  and  who 
had  drunk  his  wits  away  —  was  only  too  glad 
to  take  Heathcliff  as  lodger,  boon-companion, 
and  fellow  card-player  at  once.  And  Heathcliff 
was  content  to  wait  and  take  his  revenge  sip  by 
sip,  encouraging  his  old  oppressor  in  drink  and 
gaming,  watching  him  lose  acre  after  acre  of  his 
land,  knowing  that  sooner  or  later  Earnshaw 
would  lose  everything,  and  he,  Heathcliff,  be 
master  of  Wuthering  Heights,  with  Hindley's 
son  for  his  servant.  Revenge  is  sweet.  Mean- 
while, Wuthering  Heights  was  a  handy  lodging, 
at  walking  distance  from  the  Grange. 

But  soon  his  visits  were  cut  off.  Isabella 
Linton  —  a  charming  girl  of  eighteen  with  an 
espiegle  face  and  a  thin  sweetness  of  disposition 
that  could  easily  turn  sour —  Isabella  Linton  fell 
in  love  with  Heathcliff.  To  do  him  justice  he 
had  never  dreamed  of  marrying  her,  until  one 
day  Catharine,  in  a  fit  of  passion,  revealed  the 
poor  girl's  secret.  Heathcliff  pretended  not  to 
believe  her,  but  Isabel  was  her  brother's  heir, 
and  to  marry  her,  inherit  Edgar's  money,  and 
ill-use  his  sister,  would,  indeed,  be  a  fair  revenge 
on  Catharine's  husband. 


WUTHERING  HEIGHTS: 


253 


At  first  it  was  merely  as  an  artistically  pleas- 
urable idea,  a  castle  in  the  air,  to  be  dreamed 
about,  not  built,  that  this  scheme  suggested  it- 
self to  Heathcliff.  But  one  day,  when  he  had 
been  detected  in  an  experimental  courting  of 
Isabel,  Edgar  Linton,  glad  of  an  excuse,  turned 
him  out  of  doors.  Then,  in  a  paroxysm  of 
hatred,  never-satisfied  revenge,  and  baffled  pas- 
sion, Heathcliff  struck  with  the  poisoned  weapon 
ready  to  his  hand.  He  persuaded  Isabel  to  run 
away  with  him — no  difficult  task  —  and  they 
eloped  together  one  night  to  be  married. 

Isabella — poor,  weak,  romantic,  sprightly  Isa- 
bel —  was  not  missed  at  first  ;  for  very  terrible 
trouble  had  fallen  upon  the  Grange.  Catharine, 
in  a  paroxysm  of  rage  at  the  dismissal  of  Heath- 
cliff, quarrelled  violently  with  Edgar,  and  shut 
herself  up  in  her  own  room.  For  three  days 
and  nights  she  remained  there,  eating  nothing  ; 
Edgar,  secluded  in  his  study,  expecting  every 
moment  that  she  would  come  down  and  ask  his 
forgiveness  ;  Nelly  Dean,  who  alone  knew  of  her 
determined  starving,  resolved  to  say  nothing 
about  it,  and  conquer,  once  for  all,  the  haughty 
and  passionate  spirit  which  possessed  her  beauti- 
ful young  mistress. 

So  three  days  went  by.  Catharine  still  re- 
fused all  her  food,  and  unsympathetic  Ellen  still 
resolved  to  let  her  starve,  if  she  chose,  without  a 


254  EMILY  BRONTE. 

remonstrance.  On  the  third  day  Catharine  un- 
barred her  door  and  asked  for  food  ;  and  now 
Ellen  Dean  was  too  frightened  to  exult.  Her 
mistress  was  wasted,  haggard,  wild,  as  if  by 
months  of  illness  ;  the  too  presumptuous  ser- 
vant remembered  the  doctor's  warning,  and 
dreaded  her  master's  anger,  when  he  should  dis- 
cover Catharine's  real  condition. 

On  this  servant's  obstinate  cold-heartedness 
rests  the  crisis  of  '  Wuthering  Heights  ; '  had 
Ellen  Dean,  at  the  first,  attempted  to  console  the 
violent,  childish  Catharine,  had  she  acquainted 
Edgar  of  the  real  weakness  underneath  her  pride, 
Catharine  would  have  had  no  fatal  illness  and 
left  no  motherless  child  ;  and  had  moping  Isabel, 
instead  of  being  left  to  weep  alone  about  the 
park  and  garden,  been  conducted  to  her  sister's 
room  and  shown  a  real  sickness  to  nurse,  a  real 
misery  to  mend,  she  would  not  have  gone  away 
with  Heathcliff,  and  wedded  herself  to  sorrow, 
out  of  a  fanciful  love  in  idleness.  It  is  charac- 
teristic of  Emily  Bronte's  genius  that  she  should 
choose  so  very  simple  and  homely  a  means  for 
the  production  of  most  terrible  results. 

A  fit  she  had  had  alone  and  untended  during 
those  three  days  of  isolated  starvation  had  unset- 
tled Catharine's  reason.  The  gradual  coming-on 
of  her  delirium  is  given  with  a  masterly  pathos 
that  Webster  need  not  have  made  more  strong, 
nor  Fletcher  more  lovelv  and  appealing  : 


'WUTHERING  HEIGHTS:  255 

"  A  minute  previously  she  was  violent  ;  now, 
supported  on  one  arm  and  not  noticing  my  re- 
fusal to  obey  her,  she  seemed  to  find  childish 
diversion  in  pulling  the  feathers  from  the  rents 
she  had  just  made  in  the  pillows  and  ranging 
them  on  the  sheet  according  to  their  different 
species  :  her  mind  had  strayed  to  other  associa- 
tions. 

"'That's  a  turkey's,'  she  murmured  to  herself, 
'and  this  is  a  wild  duck's,  and  this  is  a  pigeon's. 
Ah,  they  put  pigeons'  feathers  in  the  pillows  — 
no  wonder  I  couldn't  die,!  Let  me  take  care  to 
throw  it  on  the  floor  when  I  lie  down.  And 
here  is  a  moorcock's  ;  and  this  —  I  should  know 
it  among  a  thousand  —  it's  a  lapwing's.  Bonny 
bird  ;  wheeling  over  our  heads  in  the  middle  of 
the  moor.  It  wanted  to  get  to  its  nest,  for  the 
clouds  had  touched  the  swells,  and  it  felt  rain 
coming.  This  feather  was  picked  up  from  the 
heath,  the  bird  was  not  shot  :  we  saw  its  nest  in 
the  winter,  full  of  little  skeletons.  Heathcliff 
set  a  trap  over  it  and  the  old  ones  dare  not 
come.  I  made  him  promise  he'd  never  shoot  a 
lapwing  after  that,  and  he  didn't.  Yes,  here 
are  more  !  Did  he  shoot  my  lapwings,  Nelly  ? 
Are  they  red,  any  of  them  ?     Let  me  look.' 

" '  Give  over  with  that  baby-work !  '  I  inter- 
rupted, dragging  the  pillow  away,  and  turning 
the  holes  towards  the  mattress,  for  she  was  re- 


256  EMILY  BRONTE. 

moving  its  contents  by  handfuls.  '  Lie  down 
and  shut  your  eyes  :  you're  wandering.  There's 
a  mess  !     The  down  is  flying  about  like  snow.' 

"  I  went  here  and  there  collecting  it. 

" '  I  see  in  you,  Nelly,'  she  continued,  dream- 
ily, '  an  aged  woman  :  you  have  gray  hair  and 
bent  shoulders.  This  bed  is  the  fairy  cave  under 
Peniston  Crag,  and  you  are  gathering  elf-bolts  to 
hurt  our  heifers  ;  pretending  while  I  am  near 
that  they  are  only  locks  of  wool.  That's  what 
you'll  come  to  fifty  years  hence  :  I  know  you 
are  not  so  now.  I'm  not  wandering  ;  you're 
mistaken,  or  else  I  should  believe  you  really  were 
that  withered  hag,  and  I  should  think  I  was 
under  Peniston  Crag  ;  and  I'm  conscious  it's 
night,  and  there  are  two  candles  on  the  table 
making  the  black  press  shine  like  jet.' 

" '  The  black  press  ?  Where  is  that  ? '  I  asked. 
'  You  are  talking  in  your  sleep.' 

"  '  It's  against  the  wall  as  it  always  is,'  she  re- 
plied.    '  It  does  appear  odd.     I  see  a  face  in  it ! ' 

" '  There's  no  press  in  the  room  and  never 
was,'  said  I,  resuming  my  seat,  and  looping  up 
the  curtain  that  I  might  watch  her. 

"  '  Don't  you  see  that  face  ? '  she  inquired,  gaz- 
ing earnestly  at  the  mirror. 

"  And  say  what  I  could  I  was  incapable  of 
making  her  comprehend  it  to  be  her  own  ;  so  I 
rose  and  covered  it  with  a  shawl. 


'  WUTHERING  HEIGHTS:  257 

"  '  It's  behind  there  still  ! '  she  pursued,  anx- 
iously, '  and  it  stirred.  Who  is  it  ?  I  hope  it 
will  not  come  out  when  you  are  gone.  Oh, 
Nelly  !  the  room  is  haunted  !  I'm  afraid  of  being 
alone.'    ' 

"  I  took  her  hand  in  mine,  and  bid  her  be  com- 
posed, for  a  succession  of  shudders  convulsed 
her  frame,  and  she  would  keep  "straining  her  gaze 
towards  the  glass. 

"  '  There's  nobody  here  ! '  I  insisted.  '  It  was 
yourself,  Mrs.  Linton  :  you  knew  it  a  while 
since.' 

"'Myself!'  she  gasped,  'and  the  clock  is 
striking  twelve.  It's  true  then  !  that's  dread- 
ful!  ' 

"  Her  fingers  clutched  the  clothes,  and  gathered 
them  over  her  eyes." 

This  scene  was  the  beginning  of  a  long  and 
fearful  brain-fever,  from  which,  owing  to  her 
husband's  devoted  and  ceaseless  care,  Catharine 
recovered  her  life,  but  barely  her  reason.  That 
hung  in  the  balance,  a  touch  might  settle  it  on 
the  side  of  health  or  of  madness.  Not  until  the 
beginning  of  this  fever  was  Isabella's  flight  dis- 
covered. Her  brother  was  too  concerned  with 
his  wife's  illness  to  feel  as  heart-broken  as  Heath- 
cliff  hoped.  He  was  not  violent  against  his  sis- 
ter, nor  even  angry  ;  only,  with  the  mild,  steady 
persistence  of  his  nature,  he  refused  to  hold 
17 


258  EMILY  BRONTE. 

any  communication  with  HeathclifFs  wife.  But 
when,  at  the  beginning  of  Catharine's  recovery, 
Ellen  Dean  received  a  letter  from  Isabella,  de- 
claring the  extreme  wretchedness  of  her  life  at 
Wuthering  Heights,  where  Heathcliff  was  mas- 
ter now,  Edgar  Linton  willingly  accorded  the 
servant  permission  to  go  and  see  his  sister. 

Arrived  at  Wuthering  Heights,  she  found 
that  once  plentiful  homestead  sorely  ruined  and 
deteriorated  by  years  of  thriftless  dissipation  ; 
and  Isabella  Linton,  already  metamorphosed  into 
a  wan  and  listless  slattern,  broken-spirited  and 
pale.  As  a  pleasant  means  of  entertaining  his 
wife  and  her  old  servant,  Heathcliff  discoursed 
on  his  love  for  Catharine  and  on  his  conviction 
that  she  could  not  really  care  for  Edgar  Linton. 

" '  Catharine  has  a  heart  as  deep  as  I  have  : 
the  sea  could  be  as  readily  contained  in  that 
horse-trough,  as  her  whole  affection  monopolized 
by  him.  Tush  !  He  is  scarcely  a  degree  dearer 
to  her  than  her  dog  or  her  horse.  It  is  not  in 
him  to  be  loved  like  me.  How  can  she  love  in 
him  what  he  has  not  ? '  " 

Nelly  Dean,  unhindered  by  the  sight  of  Isa- 
bella's misery,  or  by  the  memory  of  the  wrongs 
her  master  already  suffered  from  this  estimable 
neighbor,  was  finally  cajoled  into  taking  a  letter 
from  him  to  the  frail,  half-dying  Catharine,  ap- 
pointing an  interview.     For  Heathcliff  persisted 


*WUTHERING  HEIGHTS:  2$9 

that  he  had  no  wish  to  make  a  disturbance,  or  to 
exasperate  Mr.  Linton,  but  merely  to  see  his  old 
playfellow  again,  to  learn  from  her  own  lips  how 
she  was,  and  whether  in  anything  he  could  serve 
her. 

The  letter  was  taken  and  given  ;  the  meeting 
came  about  one  Sunday  when  all  the  household 
save  Ellen  Dean  were  at  church.  Catharine, 
pale,  apathetic,  but  more  than  ever  beautiful  in 
her  mazed  weakness  of  mind  and  body ;  Heath- 
cliff,  violent  in  despair,  seeing  death  in  her  face, 
alternately  upbraiding  her  fiercely  for  causing 
him  so  much  misery,  and  tenderly  caressing  the 
altered,  dying  face.  Never  was  so  strange  a 
love  scene.  It  is  not  a  scene  to  quote,  not  no- 
ticeable for  its  eloquent  passages  or  the  beauty 
of  casual  phrases,  but  for  its  sustained  passion, 
desperate,  pure,  terrible.  It  must  be  read  in  its 
sequence  and  its  entirety.  Nor  can  I  think  of 
any  parting  more  terrible,  more  penetrating  in 
its  anguish  than  this.  Romeo. and  Juliet  part  ; 
but  they  have  known  each  other  but  for  a  week. 
There  is  no  scene  that  Heathcliff  can  look  upon 
in  which  he  has  not  played  with  Catharine  :  and, 
now  that  she  is  dying,  he  must  not  watch  with 
her.  Troilus  and  Cressida  part ;  but  Cressida 
is  false,  and  Troilus  has  his  country  left  him. 
What  country  has  Heathcliff,  the  outcast,  name- 
less adventurer  ?      Antonio  and  his    Duchess  ; 


26o  EMILY  BRONTE. 

but  they  have  belonged  to  each  other  and  been 
happy  ;  these  two  are  eternally  separate.  Their 
passion  is  only  heightened  by  its  absolute  free- 
dom from  desire  ;  even  the  wicked  and  desperate 
Heathcliff  has  no  ignoble  love  for  Catharine  ;  all 
he  asks  is  that  she  live,  and  that  he  may  see  her ; 
that  she  may  be  happy  even  if  it  be  with  Linton. 
"  I  would  never  have  banished  him  from  her 
society,  while  she  desired  his,"  asserts  Heathcliff, 
and  now  she  is  mad  with  grief  and  dying.  The 
consciousness  of  their  strained  and  thwarted  na- 
tures, moreover,  makes  us  the  more  regretful 
they  must  sever.  Had  he  survived,  Romeo 
would  have  been  happy  with  Rosalind,  after  all  ; 
probably  Juliet  would  have  married  Paris.  But 
where  will  Heathcliff  love  again,  the  perverted, 
morose,  brutalized  Heathcliff,  whose  only  human 
tenderness  has  been  his  love  for  the  capricious, 
lively,  beautiful  young  creature,  now  dazed,  now 
wretched,  now  dying  in  his  arms  ?  The  very 
remembrance  of  his  violence  and  cruelty  ren- 
ders more  awful  the  spectacle  of  this  man,  sit- 
ting with  his  dying  love,  silent  ;  their  faces  hid 
against  each  other,  and  washed  by  each  other's 
tears. 

At  last  they  parted :  Catharine  unconscious, 
half-dead.  That  night  her  puny,  seven-months' 
child  was  born  ;  that  night  the  mother  died,  un- 
utterably  changed   from   the   bright,  imperious 


lWUTHERING  HEIGHTS?  26l 

creature  who  entered  that  house  as  a  kingdom, 
not  yet  a  year  ago.  By  her  side,  in  the  darkened 
chamber,  her  husband  lay,  worn  out  with  an- 
guish. Outside,  dashing  his  head  against  the 
trees  in  a  Berserker-wrath  with  fate,  Heathcliff 
raged,  not  to  be  consoled. 

"  '  Her  senses  never  returned  :  she  recognized 
nobody  from  the  time  you  left  her,'  I  said.  '  She 
lies  with  a  sweet  smile  upon  her  face,  and  her 
latest  ideas  wandered  back  to  pleasant  early  days. 
Her  life  closed  in  a  gentle  dream  —  may  she 
wake  as  kindly  in  the  other  world  ! ' 

" '  May  she  wake  in  torment ! '  he  cried,  with 
frightful  vehemence,  stamping  his  foot  and  groan- 
ing in  a  paroxysm  of  ungovernable  passion. 
'Why,  she's  a  liar  to  the  end!  Where  is  she  ? 
Not  tliere — not  in  heaven  —  not  perished  — 
where  ?  Oh  !  you  said  you  cared  nothing  for 
my  sufferings.  And  I  pray  one  prayer.  I  re- 
peat it  till  my  tongue  stiffens.  Catharine  Earn- 
shaw,  may  you  not  rest  as  long  as  I  am  living. 
You  said  I  killed  you  —  haunt  me  then!  The 
murdered  do  haunt  their  murderers,  I  believe. 
I  know  that  ghosts  have  wandered  on  earth.  Be 
with  me  always  —  take  any  form  —  drive  me 
mad  !  only  do  not  leave  me  in  this  abyss  where 
I  cannot  find  you  !  Oh,  God,  it  is  unutterable ! 
I  cannot  live  without  my  life.  I  cannot  live  with- 
out my  soul.' 


262  EMILY  BRONTE. 

"  He  dashed  his  head  against  the  knotted 
trunk  ;  and,  lifting  up  his  eyes,  howled,  not  like 
a  man,  but  like  a  savage  beast  being  goaded  to 
death  with  knives  and  spears.  I  observed  several 
splashes  of  blood  about  the  bark  of  the  tree,  and 
his  hand  and  forehead  were  both  stained  ;  proba- 
bly the  scene  I  witnessed  was  the  repetition  of 
others  acted  during  the  night.  It  hardly  moved 
my  compassion,  it  appalled  me." 

From  this  time  a  slow,  insidious  madness 
worked  in  Heathcliff.  When  it  was  at  its  height 
he  was  not  fierce,  but  strangely  silent,  scarcely 
breathing  ;  hushed,  as  a  person  who  draws  his 
breath  to  hear  some  sound  only  just  not  heard  as 
yet,  as  a  man  who  strains  his  eyes  to  see  the 
speck  on  the  horizon  which  will  rise  the  next 
moment,  the  next  instant,  and  grow  into  the  ship 
that  brings  his  treasure  home.  "  When  I  sat  in 
the  house  with  Hareton,  it  seemed  that  on  going 
out  I  should  meet  her  ;  when  I  walked  on  the 
moors,  I  should  meet  her  coming  in.  When  I 
went  from  home,  I  hastened  to  return  ;  she  must 
be  somewhere  at  the  Heights  I  was  certain  ;  and 
when  I  slept  in  her  chamber —  I  was  beaten  out 
of  that.  I  couldn't  lie  there ;  for  the  moment  I 
closed  my  eyes,  she  was  either  outside  the  win- 
dow, or  sliding  back  the  panels,  or  entering  the 
room,  or  even  resting  her  darling  head  on  the 
same  pillow,  as  she  did  when  a  child  ;  and  I  must 


'  WUTHERING  HEIGHTS:  263 

open  my  lids  to  see.  And  so  I  opened  and 
closed  them  a  hundred  times  a  night  to  be  al- 
ways disappointed.  It  was  a  strange  way  of 
killing,  not  by  inches,  but  by  fractions  of  hair- 
breadths, to  beguile  me  with  the  spectre  of  a 
hope  through  eighteen  years."  This  mania  of 
expectation  stretching  the  nerves  to  their  utter- 
most strain,  relaxed  sometimes  ;  and  then  Heath- 
cliff  was  dangerous.  When  filled  with  the 
thought  of  Catharine,  the  world  was  indifferent  to 
him  ;  but  when  this  possessing  memory  abated 
ever  so  little,  he  remembered  that  the  world 
was  his  enemy,  had  cheated  him  of  Catharine. 
Then  avarice,  ambition,  revenge,  entered  into  his 
soul,  and  his  last  state  was  worse  than  his  first. 
Cruel,  with  the  insane  cruelty,  the  blood  mania 
of  an  Ezzelin,  he  never  was  ;  his  cruelties  had  a 
purpose  ;  the  sufferings  of  the  victims  were  a  de- 
tail, not  an  end.  Yet  something  of  that  despot's 
character,  refined  into  torturing  the  mind  and 
not  the  flesh,  chaste,  cruel,  avaricious  of  power, 
something  of  that  southern  morbidness  in  crime, 
distinguishes  Heathcliff  from  the  villains  of  mod- 
ern English  tragedies.  Placed  in  the  Italian  Re- 
naissance, with  Cyril  Tourneur  for  a  chronicler, 
Heathcliff  would  not  have  awakened  the  out- 
burst of  incredulous  indignation  which  greeted 
his  appearance  in  a  nineteenth-century  ro- 
mance. 


264  EMILY  BRONTE. 

Soon  after  the  birth  of  the  younger  Catharine, 
Isabella  Heathcliff  escaped  from  her  husband  to 
the  South  of  England.  He  made  no  attempt  to 
follow  her,  and  in  her  new  home  she  gave  birth 
to  a  son,  Linton  —  the  fruit  of  timidity  and 
hatred,  fear  and  revulsion — "from  the  first  she 
reported  him  to  be  an  ailing,  peevish  creature." 
Meanwhile  little  Catharine  grew  up  the  very 
light  of  her  home,  an  exquisite  creature  with  her 
father's  gentle,  constant  nature  inspired  by  a 
spark  of  her  mother's  fire  and  lightened  by  a 
gleam  of  her  wayward  caprice.  She  had  the 
Earnshaws'  handsome  dark  eyes  and  the  Lintons' 
fair  skin,  regular  features  and  curling  yellow 
hair.  "That  capacity  for  intense  attachments 
reminded  me  of  her  mother.  Still  she  did  not 
resemble  her ;  her  anger  was  never  furious  ;  her 
love  never  fierce ;  it  was  deep  and  tender." 
Cathy  was  in  truth  a  charming  creature,  though 
less  passionate  and  strange  a  nature  than  Cath- 
arine Earnshaw,  not  made  to  be  loved  as  wildly 
nor  as  deeply  mistrusted. 

Edgar,  grown  a  complete  hermit,  devoted  him- 
self to  his  child,  who  spent  a  life  as  happy  and 
secluded  as  a  princess  in  a  fairy  story,  seldom 
venturing  outside  the  limits  of  the  park  and 
never  by  herself.  Edgar  had  never  forgotten 
his  sorrow  for  the  death  of  his  young  wife ;  he 
loved  her  memory  with  steady  constancy.     If  — 


«  WUTHERING  HEIGHTS:  26$ 

and  I  think  we  may  —  if  we  allow  that  every 
author  has  some  especial  quality  with  which,  in 
more  or  less  degree,  he  endows  all  his  children 
—  if  we  grant  that  Shakespeare's  people  are  all 
meditative,  even  the  sprightly  Rosalind  and  the 
clownish  Dogberry  —  if  we  allow  that  all  our 
acquaintances  in  Dickens  are  a  trifle  self-con- 
scious, in  George  Eliot  conscientious  to  such 
an  extent  that  even  Tito  Melema  feels  remorse 
for  conduct  which,  granted  his  period  and  his 
character,  would  more  naturally  have  given  him 
satisfaction  —  then  we  must  allow  that  Emily 
Bronte's  special  mark  is  constancy,  —  passionate, 
insane  constancy  in  Heathcliff ;  perverse,  but 
intense  in  the  elder  Catharine  ;  steady  and  holy 
in  Edgar  Linton.  Even  the  hard  and  narrow 
Ellen  Dean,  even  Joseph,  the  hypocritical  Phar- 
isee, are  constant  until  death.  Wild  Hindley 
Earnshaw  drinks  himself  to  death  for  grief  at 
losing  his  consumptive  wife ;  Hareton  loves  to 
the  end  the  man  who  has  usurped  his  place,  de- 
graded him,  fed  him  on  blows  and  exaction :  and 
it  is  constancy  in  absence  that  imbitters  and 
sickens  the  younger  Catharine.  Even  Isabella 
Heathcliff,  weak  as  she  is,  is  not  fickle.  Even 
Linton  Heathcliff,  who,  of  all  the  characters  in 
fiction,  may  share  with  Barnes  Newcome  the 
bad  eminence  of  supreme  unlovableness,  even  he 
loves  his  mother  and  Catharine,  and,  in  his  self- 
ish way,  loves  them  to  the  end. 


266  EMILY  BRONTE. 

The  years  passed,  nothing  happened,  save 
that  Hindley  Earnshaw  died,  and  Heathcliff, 
to  whom  every  yard  had  been  mortgaged,  took 
possession  of  the  place  ;  Hareton,  who  should 
have  been  the  first  gentleman  in  the  neighbor- 
hood, "  being  reduced  to  a  state  of  complete  de- 
pendence on  his  father's  inveterate  enemy,  lives 
as  a  servant  in  his  own  house,  deprived  of  the 
advantages  of  wages,  quite  unable  to  right  himself 
because  of  his  friendlessness,  and  his  ignorance 
that  he  has  been  wronged." 

The  eventless  years  went  by  till  Catharine 
was  thirteen,  when  Mrs.  Heathcliff  died,  and  Ed- 
gar«went  to  the  South  of  England  to  fetch  her 
son.  Little  Cathy,  during  her  father's  absence, 
grew  impatient  of  her  confinement  to  the  park  ; 
there  was  no  one  to  escort  her  over  the  moors, 
so  one  day  she  leapt  the  fence,  got  lost,  and  was 
finally  sheltered  at  Wuthering  Heights,  of  which 
place  and  of  all  its  inmates  she  had  been  kept  in 
total  ignorance.  She  promised  to  keep  the  visit 
a  secret  from  her  father,  lest  he  should  dismiss 
Ellen  Dean.  She  was  very  indignant  at  being 
told  that  rudely  bred  Hareton  was  her  cousin  ; 
and  when  that  night  Linton  —  delicate,  pretty, 
pettish  Linton  —  arrived,  she  infinitely  preferred 
his  cousinship. 

The  next  morning  she  found  Linton  gone,  his 
father  having  sent  for  him  to  Wuthering  Heights  ; 


•  WUTHERING  HEIGHTS?  26y 

Edgar  Linton,  however,  did  not  tell  his  daughter 
that  her  cousin  was  so  near,  he  would  not  for 
worlds  she  should  cross  the  threshold  of  that 
terrible  house.  But  one  day,  Cathy  and  Ellen 
Dean  met  Heathcliff  on  the  moors,  and  he  half 
persuaded,  half  forced  them  to  come  home  and 
see  his  son,  grown  a  most  despicable,  puling, 
ailing  creature,  half-violent,  half-terrified.  Cathy's 
kind  little  heart  did  not  see  the  faults,  she 
only  saw  that  her  cousin  was  ill,  unhappy,  in 
need  of  her ;  she  was  easily  entrapped,  one  win- 
ter, when  her  father  and  Ellen  Dean  were  both 
ill,  into  a  secret  engagement  with  this  boy-cousin, 
the  only  lad,  save  uncouth  Hareton,  whom  she 
had  ever  seen. 

Every  night,  when  her  day's  nursing  was  done, 
she  rode  over  to  Wuthering  Heights  to  pet  and 
fondle  Linton.  Heathcliff  did  all  he  could  to 
favor  the  plan.  He  knew  his  son  was  dying, 
notwithstanding  that  every  care  was  taken  to 
preserve  the  heir  of  Wuthering  Heights  and 
Thrushcross  Grange.  It  is  true  that  Cathy  had 
a  rival  claim  ;  to  marry  her  to  Linton  would  be 
to  secure  the  title,  get  a  wife  for  his  dying  son  to 
preserve  the  line  of  inheritance,  and  certainly 
to  break  Edgar  Linton's  heart.  Heathcliff's  love 
of  revenge  and  love  of  power  combined  to  make 
the  scheme  a  thing  to  strive  for  and  desire. 

He  grew  desperate  as  the  boy  got  weaker  and 


268  EMILY  BRONTE. 

weaker  ;  it  was  but  too  likely  that  he  would  die 
before  his  dying  uncle,  and,  if  Edgar  Linton 
survived,  Thrushcross  Grange  was  lost  to  Heath- 
cliff.  As  a  last  resource  he  made  his  son  write 
to  Edgar  Linton  and  beg  for  an  interview  on 
neutral  ground.  Edgar,  who,  ignorant  of  Linton 
Heathcliff's  true  character,  saw  no  reason  why 
Cathy  should  not  marry  her  cousin  if  they  loved 
each  other,  allowed  Ellen  Dean  to  take  her  little 
mistress,  now  seventeen  years  old,  on  to  the 
moors  where  Linton  Heathcliff  was  to  meet  them. 
Cathy  was  loath  to  leave  her  father  even  for  an 
hour,  he  was  so  ill  ;  but  she  had  been  told  Lin- 
ton was  dying,  so  nerved  herself  to  go  once  more 
on  the  moors :  they  found  Linton  in  a  strange 
state,  terrified,  exhausted,  despondent,  making 
spasmodic  love  to  Cathy  as  if  it  were  a  lesson  he 
had  been  beaten  into  learning.  She  wished  to 
return,  but  the  boy  declared  himself,  and  looked, 
too  ill  to  go  back  alone.  They  escorted  him 
home  to  the  Heights,  and  Heathcliff  persuaded 
them  to  enter,  saying  he  would  go  for  a  doctor 
for  his  sick  lad.  But,  once  they  were  in  the 
house,  he  showed  his  hand.  The  doors  were 
bolted  ;  the  servants  and  Hareton  away.  Neither 
tears  nor  prayers  would  induce  him  to  let  his 
victims  go  till  Catharine  was  Linton's  wife,  and 
so,  he  told  her,  till  her  father  had  died  in  soli- 
tude.    But  five  days   after,   Catharine    Linton, 


«  WUTHERING  HEIGHTS:  269 

now  Catharine  Heathcliff,  contrived  an  escape 
in  time  to  console  her  father's  dying  hours  with 
a  false  belief  in  her  happiness  ;  a  noble  lie,  for 
Edgar  Linton  died  contented,  kissing  his  daugh- 
ter's cheek,  ignorant  of  the  misery  in  store  for 
her. 

The  next  day  Heathcliff  came  over  to  the 
Grange  to  recapture  his  prey,  but  now  Catharine 
did  not  mind  ;  her  father  dead,  she  received  all 
the  affronts  and  stings  of  fate  with  an  enduring 
apathy;  it  was  only  her  that  they  injured.  A 
few  days  after  Linton  died  in  the  night,  alone 
with  his  bride.  After  a  year's  absolute  misery 
and  loneliness,  Catharine's  lot  was  a  little 
lightened  by  Mr.  Heathcliff's  preferring  Ellen 
Dean  to  the  vacant  post  of  housekeeper  at 
Wuthering  Heights. 

For  the  all-absorbing  presence  of  Catharine 
Earnshaw  had  nearly  secluded  Heathcliff  from 
enmity  with  the  world  ;  he  was  seldom  violent 
now.  He  became  yet  more  and  more  disin- 
clined to  society,  sitting  alone,  seldom  eating, 
often  walking  about  the  whole  night.  His  face 
changed,  and  the  look  of  brooding  hate  gave  way 
to  a  yet  more  alarming  expression  —  an  excited, 
wild,  unnatural  appearance  of  joy.  He  com- 
plained of  no  illness,  yet  he  was  very  pale,  blood- 
less, "  and  his  teeth  visible  now  and  then  in  a 
kind  of   smile ;  his  frame  shivering,  not  as  one 


2yo  EMILY  BRONTE. 

shivers  with  chill  or  weakness,  but  as  a  tight- 
stretched  cord  vibrates  —  a  strong  thrilling, 
rather  than  trembling."  At  last  his  mysterious 
absorption,  the  stress  of  his  expectation,  became 
so  intense  that  he  could  not  eat.  Animated 
with  hunger,  he  would  sit  down  to  his  meal, 
then  suddenly  start,  as  if  he  saw  something, 
glance  at  the  door  or  the  window  and  go  out. 
Weary  and  pale,  he  could  not  sleep  ;  but  left  his 
bed  hurriedly,  and  went  out  to  pace  the  garden 
till  break  of  day.  "  \  It  is  not  my  fault,'  he  re- 
plied, 'that  I  cannot  eat  or  rest.  I  assure  you  it 
is  through  no  settled  design.  I'll  do  both  as 
soon  as  I  possibly  can.  But  you  might  as  well 
bid  a  man  struggling  in  the  water  rest  within 
arm's-length  of  the  shore.  I  must  reach  it  first 
and  then  I'll  rest.  As  to  repenting  of  my  injus- 
tices, I've  done  no  injustice  and  I  repent  of  noth- 
ing. I'm  too  happy,  and  yet  I'm  not  happy 
enough.  My  soul's  bliss  kills  my  body,  but  does 
not  satisfy  itself.' " 

Meanwhile  the  schemes  of  a  life,  the  deeply 
laid  purposes  of  his  revenge,  were  toppling  un- 
heeded all  round  him,  like  a  house  of  cards.  His 
son  was  dead.  Hareton  Earnshaw,  the  real  heir 
of  Wuthering  Heights,  and  Catharine,  the  real 
heir  of  Thrushcross  Grange,  had  fallen  in  love 
with  each  other.  A  most  unguessed-at  and  un- 
likely finale ;    yet  most  natural.     For  Catharine 


«  WUTHERING  HEIGHTS: 


271 


was  spoiled,  acomplished,  beautiful,  proud  —  yet 
most  affectionate  and  tender-hearted  :  and  Hare- 
ton  rude,  surly,  ignorant,  fierce  ;  yet  true  as  steel, 
stanch,  and  with  a  very  loving  faithful  heart, 
constant  even  to  the  man  who  had,  of  set  pur- 
pose, brutalized  him  and  kept  him  in  servitude. 
"  '  Hareton  is  damnably  fond  of  me  ! '  laughed 
Heathcliff.  '  You'll  own  that  I've  outmatched 
Hindley  there.  If  the  dead  villain  could  rise 
from  the  grave  to  abuse  me  for  his  offspring's 
wrongs,  I  should  have  the  fun  of  seeing  the  said 
offspring  fight  him  back  again,  indignant  that  he 
should  dare  to  rail  at  the  one  friend  he  has  in 
the  world.' 

"  '  He'll  never  be  able  to  emerge  from  his 
bathos  of  coarseness  and  ignorance,' "  cried 
Heathcliff  in  exultation ;  but  love  can  do  as 
much  as  hatred.  Heathcliff,  himself  as  great 
a  boor  at  twenty,  contrived  to  rub  off  his  clown- 
ishness  in  order  to  revenge  himself  upon  his 
enemies  ;  Catharine  Linton's  love  inspired  Hare- 
ton  to  as  great  an  effort.  This  odd,  rough  love- 
story,  as  harshly  sweet  as  whortle-berries,  as  dry 
and  stiff  in  its  beauty  as  purple  heather-sprays, 
is  the  most  purely  human,  the  only  tender 
interest  of  Wuthering  Heights.  It  is  the  nec- 
essary and  lawful  anti-climax  to  HeathclifFs  tri- 
umph, the  final  reassertion  of  the  pre-eminence 
of  right.    "Conquered  good,  and  conquering  ill" 


272 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


is  often  pitiably  true  ;  but  not  an  everlasting  law, 
only  a  too  frequent  accident.  Perceiving  this, 
Emily  Bronte  shows  the  final  discomfiture  of 
Heathcliff,  who,  kinless  and  kithless,  was  in  the 
end  compelled  to  see  the  property  he  has  so 
cruelly  amassed  descend  to  his  hereditary  ene- 
mies. And  he  was  baffled,  not  so  much  by 
Cathy's  and  Hareton's  love  affairs  as  by  this 
sudden  reaction  from  violence,  this  slackening  of 
the  heartstrings,  which  left  him  nerveless  and 
anaemic,  a  prey  to  encroaching  monomania.  He 
had  spent  his  life  in  crushing  the  berries  for  his 
revenge,  in  mixing  that  dark  and  maddening 
draught ;  and  when  the  final  moment  came,  when 
he  lifted  it  to  his  lips,  desire  had  left  him,  he  had 
no  taste  for  it. 

"  I've  done  no  injustices,"  said  Heathcliff ;  and 
though  his  life  had  been  animated  by  hate,  re- 
venge, and  passion,  let  us  reflect  who  have  been 
his  victims.  Not  the  old  Squire  who  first  shel- 
tered him  ;  for  the  old  man  never  lived  to  know 
his  favorite's  baseness,  and  only  derived  comfort 
from  his  presence.  Catharine  Earnshaw  suf- 
fered, not  from  the  character  of  her  lover,  but 
because  she  married  a  man  she  merely  liked, 
with  her  eyes  open  to  the  fact  that  she  was 
thereby  wronging  the  man  she  loved.  "  You 
deserve  this,"  said  Heathcliff,  when  she  was 
dying.      "  You   have   killed   yourself.      Because 


'WUTHERING  HEIGHTS: 


273 


misery  and  degradation  and  death,  and  nothing 
that  God  or  Satan  could  inflict  would  ever  have 
parted  us :  you,  of  your  own  will,  did  it."  Not 
the  morality  of  Mayfair,  but  one  whose  lessons, 
stern  and  grim  enough,  must  ever  be  sorrowfully 
patent  to  such  erring  and  passionate  spirits.  The 
third  of  Heathcliffs  victims  then,  or  rather  the 
first,  was  Hindley  Earnshaw.  But  if  Hindley 
had  not  already  been  a  gamester  and  a  drunkard, 
a  violent  and  soulless  man,  Heathcliff  could  have 
gained  no  power  over  him.  Hindley  welcomed 
Heathcliff,  as  Faustus  the  Devil,  because  he  could 
gratify  his  evil  desires  ;  because,  in  his  presence, 
there  was  no  need  to  remember  shame,  nor  high 
purposes,  nor  forsaken  goodness  ;  and  when  the 
end  comes,  and  he  shall  forfeit  his  soul,  let  him 
remember  that  there  were  two  at  that  bargain. 

Isabella  Linton  was  the  most  pitiable  sufferer. 
Victim  we  can  scarcely  call  her,  who  required  no 
deception,  but  courted  her  doom.  And  after  all, 
a  marriage  chiefly  desired  in  order  to  humiliate 
a  sister-in-law  and  show  the  bride  to  be  a  person 
of  importance,  was  not  intolerably  requited  by 
three  months  of  wretched  misery  ;  after  so  much 
she  is  suffered  to  escape.  From  Edgar  Linton, 
as  we  have  seen,  Heathcliffs  blows  fell  aside 
unharming,  as  the  executioner's  strokes  from  a 
legendary  martyr.  He  never  learnt  how  sec- 
ondary a  place  he  held  in  his  wife's  heart,  he  never 
iS 


274 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


knew  the  misery  of  his  only  daughter  —  misery 
soon  to  be  turned  into  joy.  He  lived  and  died, 
patient,  happy,  trustful,  unvisited  by  the  vio- 
lence and  fury  that  had  their  centre  so  near 
his  hearth. 

The  younger  Catharine  and  Hareton  suffered 
but  a  temporary  ill ;  the  misery  they  endured 
together  taught  them  to  love  ;  the  tyrant's  rod 
had  blossomed  into  roses.  And  he,  lonely  and 
palsied  at  heart,  eating  out  his  soul  in  bitter  soli- 
tude, he  saw  his  plans  of  vengeance  all  frustrated, 
so  much  elaboration  so  simply  counteracted ;  it 
was  he  that  suffered. 

He  suffered  now :  and  Catharine  Earnshaw 
who  helped  him  to  ruin  by  her  desertion,  and 
Hindley  who  perverted  him  by  early  oppression, 
they  suffered  at  his  hands.  But  not  the  sinless, 
the  constant,  the  noble  ;  misery,  in  the  end,  shifts 
its  dull  mists  before  the  light  of  such  clear  spirits: 
tcl  hpdaavTt  irddeiv. 

"  '  It  is  a  poor  conclusion,  is  it  not  ? '  said  Heath- 
cliff,  '  an  absurd  termination  to  my  violent  exer- 
tions. I  get  levers  and  mattocks  to  demolish  the 
two  houses,  and  train  myself  to  be  capable  of 
working  like  Hercules,  and  when  everything  is 
ready  and  in  my  power,  I  find  the  will  to  lift  a 
slate  off  either  roof  has  vanished.' 

"  Five  minutes  ago  Hareton  seemed  to  be  a 


'  WUTHERING  HEIGHTS: 


275 


personification  of  my  youth,  not  a  human  being  : 
I  felt  to  him  in  such  a  variety  of  ways  that  it 
would  have  been  impossible  to  have  accosted  him 
rationally.  In  the  first  place,  his  startling  like- 
ness to  Catharine  connected  him  fearfully  with 
her.  That,  however,  which  you  may  suppose  the 
most  potent  to  arrest  my  imagination  is  in  reality 
the  least :  for  what  is  not  connected  with  her  to 
me  ?  and  what  does  not  recall  her  ?  I  cannot 
look  down  to  the  floor  but  her  features  are  shaped 
in  the  flags!  In  every  cloud,  in  every  tree  — 
filling  the  air  by  night  and  caught  by  glimpses 
in  every  object  by  day  —  I  am  surrounded  by 
her  image.  The  most  ordinary  faces  of  men  and 
women  —  my  own  features  —  mock  me  with  a 
resemblance.  The  entire  world  is  a  dreadful 
collection  of  memoranda  that  she  did  exist,  and 
that  I  have  lost  her !  Well,  Hareton's  aspect 
was  the  ghost  of  my  immortal  love  ;  of  my  wild 
endeavors  to  hold  my  right ;  my  degradation, 
my  pride,  my  happiness,  and  my  anguish  — 

"  But  it  is  frenzy  to  repeat  these  thoughts  to 
you :  only  it  will  let  you  know  why,  with  a  reluc- 
tance to  be  always  alone,  his  society  is  no  benefit ; 
rather  an  aggravation  of  the  constant  torment  I 
suffer ;  and  it  partly  contributes  to  render  me 
regardless  how  he  and  his  cousin  go  on  together. 
I  can  give  them  no  attention  any  more." 

Sweet,  forward  Catharine  and  coy,  passionate 


2?6  EMILY  BRONTE. 

Hareton  got  on  very  prettily  together.  I  can 
recall  no  more  touching  and  lifelike  scene  than 
that  first  love-making  of  theirs,  one  rainy  after- 
noon, in  the  kitchen  where  Nelly  Dean  is  ironing 
the  linen.  Hareton,  sulky  and  miserable,  sitting 
by  the  fire,  hurt  by  a  gunshot  wound,  but  yet 
more  by  the  manifold  rebuffs  of  pretty  Cathy. 
She,  with  all  her  sauciness,  limp  in  the  dull,  wet 
weather,  coaxing  him  into  good  temper  with  the 
sweetest  advancing  graces.  It  is  strange  that  in 
speaking  of  '  Wuthering  Heights  '  this  beautiful 
episode  should  be  so  universally  forgotten,  and 
only  the  violence  and  passion  of  more  terrible 
passages  associated  with  Emily  Brontes  name. 
Yet,  out  of  the  strong  cometh  forth  the  sweet ; 
and  the  best  honey  from  the  dry  heather-bells. 

Meanwhile,  Heathcliff  let  them  go  on,  fright- 
ening them  more  by  his  strange  mood  of  abstrac- 
tion than  by  his  accustomed  ferocity. 

He  could  give  them  no  attention  any  more. 
For  four  days  he  could  neither  eat  nor  rest,  till 
his  cheeks  grew  hollow  and  his  eyes  bloodshot, 
like  a  person  starving  with  hunger,  and  growing 
blind  with  loss  of  sleep. 

At  last  one  early  morning,  when  the  rain  was 
streaming  in  at  Heathcliff's  flapping  lattice, 
Nelly  Dean,  like  a  good  housewife,  went  in  to 
shut  it  to.  The  master  must  be  up  or  out,  she 
said.     But  pushing  back  the  panels  of  the  en- 


<  WUTHERING  HEIGHTS: 


277 


closed  bed,  she  found  him  there,  laid  on  his  back, 
his  open  eyes  keen  and  fierce  ;  quite  still,  though 
his  face  and  throat  were  washed  with  rain  ;  quite 
still,  with  a  frightful,  lifelike  gaze  of  exultation 
under  his  brows,  with  parted  lips  and  sharp 
white  teeth  that  sneered — quite  still  and  harm- 
less now  ;  dead  and  stark. 

Dead,  before  any  vengeance  had  overtaken 
him,  other  than  the  slow,  retributive  sufferings 
of  his  own  breast ;  dead,  slain  by  too  much  hope, 
and  an  unnatural  joy.  Never  before  had  any 
villain  so  strange  an  end  ;  never  before  had  any 
sufferer  so  protracted  and  sinister  a  torment, 
"beguiled  with  the  spectre  of  a  hope  through 
eighteen  years." 

No  more  public  nor  authoritative  punishment. 
Hareton  passionately  mourned  his  lost  tyrant, 
weeping  in  bitter  earnest,  and  kissing  the  sarcas- 
tic, savage  face  that  every  one  else  shrunk  from 
contemplating.  And  Heathcliff's  memory  was 
sacred,  having  in  the  youth  he  ruined  a  most 
valiant  defender.  Even  Catharine  might  never 
bemoan  his  wickednesses  to  her  husband. 

No  execrations  in  this  world  or  the  next  ;  a 
great  quiet  envelops  him.  His  violence  was  not 
strong  enough  to  reach  that  final  peace  and  mar 
its  completeness.  His  grave  is  next  to  Cath- 
arine's, and  near  to  Edgar  Linton's ;  over  them 
all  the  wild  bilberry  springs,  and  the  peat-moss 


278  EMILY  BRONTE. 

and  heather.  They  do  not  reck  of  the  passion, 
the  capricious  sweetness,  the  steady  goodness, 
that  lie  underneath.  It  is  all  one  to  them  and 
to  the  larks  singing  aloft. 

"  I  lingered  round  the  graves  under  that  be- 
nign sky  ;  watched  the  moths  fluttering  among 
the  heath  and  harebells,  listened  to  the  soft  wind 
breathing  through  the  grass  ;  and  wondered  how 
any  one  could  ever  imagine  unquiet  slumbers  for 
the  sleepers  in  that  quiet  earth." 

So  ends  the  story  of  Wuthering  Heights. 

The  world  is  now  agreed  to  accept  that  story 
as  a  great  and  tragic  study  of  passion  and  sorrow, 
a  wild  picture  of  storm  and  moorland,  of  outraged 
goodness  and  ingratitude.  The  world  which  has 
crowned  'King  Lear'  with  immortality,  keeps  a 
lesser  wreath  for  '  Wuthering  Heights.'  But  in 
1848,  the  peals  of  triumph  which  acclaimed  the 
success  of  'Jane  Eyre'  had  no  echo  for  the  work 
of  Ellis  Bell.  That  strange  genius,  brooding 
and  foreboding,  intense  and  narrow,  was  passed 
over,  disregarded.  One  author,  indeed,  in  one 
review,  Sydney  Dobell,  in  the  Palladium,  spoke 
nobly  and  clearly  of  the  energy  and  genius  of 
this  book  ;  but  when  that  clarion  augury  of  fame 
at  last  was  sounded,  Emily  did  not  hear.  Two 
years  before  they  had  laid  her  in  the  tomb. 

No  praise  for  Ellis  Bell.  It  is  strange  to 
think  that  of  Charlotte's  two  sisters  it  was  Anne 


<  VVUTHERING  HEIGHTS: 


279 


who  had  the  one  short  draught  of  exhilarating 
fame.  When  the  '  Tenant  of  Wildfell  Hall '  was 
in  proof,  Ellis's  and  Acton's  publisher  sold  it  to 
an  American  firm  as  the  last  and  finest  produc- 
tion of  the  author  of  '  Jane  Eyre  and  '  Wuther- 
ing  Heights.'  Strange,  that  even  a  publisher 
could  so  blunder,  even  for  his  own  interest. 
However,  this  mistake  caused  sufficient  confu- 
sion at  Cornhill  to  make  it  necessary  that  the 
famous  Charlotte,  accompanied  by  Anne,  in  her 
quality  of  secondary  and  mistakable  genius, 
should  go  to  town  and  explain  their  separate 
existence.  No  need  to  disturb  the  author  of 
'  Wuthering  Heights,'  that  crude  work  of  a  'pren- 
tice hand,  over  whose  reproduction  no  publish- 
ers quarrelled ;  such  troublesome  honors  were 
not  for  her. 

"  Yet,"  says  Charlotte,  "  I  must  not  be  under- 
stood to  make  these  things  subject  for  reproach 
or  complaint;  I  dare  not  do  so  ;  respect  for  my 
sister's  memory  forbids  me.  By  her  any  such 
querulous  manifestation  would  have  been  re- 
garded as  an  unworthy  and  offensive  weakness." 

When,  indeed,  did  the  murmur  of  complaint 
pass  those  pale,  inspired  lips  ?  Failure  can  have 
come  to  her  with  no  shock  of  aghast  surprise. 
All  her  plans  had  failed  ;  Branwell's  success,  the 
school,  her  poems  :  her  strong  will  had  not  car- 
ried them  on  to  success. 


280  EMILY  BRONTE. 

But  though  it  could  not  bring  success,  it  could 
support  her  against  despair.  When  this  last, 
dearest,  strongest  work  of  hers  was  weighed  in 
the  world's  scales  and  found  wanting,  she  did 
not  sigh,  resign  herself,  and  think  the  battle 
over  ;  she  would  have  fought  again. 

But  the  battle  was  over,  over  before  victory 
was  declared.  No  more  failures,  no  more  striv- 
ings, for  that  brave  spirit.  It  was  in  July  that 
Charlotte  and  Anne  returned  from  London,  in 
July  when  the  heather  is  in  bud  ;  scarce  one  last 
withered  spray  was  left  in  December  to  place  on 
Emily's  deathbed. 


CHAPTER   XVI. 

'  SHIRLEY.' 

While  '  Wuthering  Heights '  was  still  in  the  re- 
viewer's hands,  Emily  Bronte's  more  fortunate 
sister  was  busy  on  another  novel.  This  book 
has  never  attained  the  steady  success  of  her 
masterpiece,  'Villette,'  neither  did  it  meet  with 
the  furor  which  greeted  the  first  appearance  of 
'Jane  Eyre.'  It  is,  indeed,  inferior  to  either 
work ;  a  very  quiet  study  of  Yorkshire  life,  al- 
most pettifogging  in  its  interest  in  ecclesiastical 
squabbles,  almost  absurd  in  the  feminine  inad- 
equacy of  its  heroes.  And  yet  '  Shirley  '  has  a 
grace  and  beauty  of  its  own.  This  it  derives 
from  the  charm  of  its  heroines  —  Caroline  Hel- 
stone,  a  lovely  portrait  in  character  of  Charlotte's 
dearest  friend,  and  Shirley  herself,  a  fancy  like- 
ness of  Emily  Bronte. 

Emily  Bronte,  but  under  very  different  condi- 
tions. No  longer  poor,  no  longer  thwarted,  no 
longer  acquainted  with  misery  and  menaced  by 
untimely  death  ;  not  thus,  but  as  a  loving  sister 
would  fain  have  seen  her,  beautiful,  triumphant, 


282  EMILY  BRONTE. 

the  spoiled  child  of  happy  fortune.  Yet  in  these 
altered  circumstances  Shirley  keeps  her  likeness 
to  Charlotte's  hard-working  sister  ;  the  disguise, 
haply  baffling  those  who,  like  Mrs.  Gaskell, 
"  have  not  a  pleasant  impression  of  Emily 
Bronte,"  is  very  easily  penetrated  by  those  who 
love  her.  Under  the  pathetic  finery  so  lovingly 
bestowed,  under  the  borrowed  splendors  of  a 
thousand  a  year,  a  lovely  face,  an  ancestral 
manor-house,  we  recognize  our  hardy  and  head- 
strong heroine,  and  smile  a  little  sadly  at  the 
inefficiency  of  this  masquerade  of  grandeur,  so 
indifferent  and  unnecessary  to  her.  We  recog- 
nize Charlotte's  sister,  but  not  the  author  of 
'Wuthering  Heights.'  Through  these  years  we 
discern  the  brilliant  heiress  to  be  a  person  of 
infinitely  inferior  importance  to  the  ill-dressed 
and  overworked  Vicar's  daughter.  Imperial  Shir- 
ley, no  need  to  wave  your  majestic  wand,  we 
have  bowed  to  it  long  ago  unblinded  ;  and  all  its 
illusive  splendors  are  not  so  potent  as  that  worn- 
down  goose-quill  which  you  used  to  wield  in  the 
busy  kitchen  of  your  father's  parsonage. 

Yet  without  that  admirable  portrait  we  should 
have  scant  warrant  for  our  conception  of  Emily 
Bronte's  character.  Her  work  is  singularly  im- 
personal. You  gather  from  it  that  she  loved  the 
moors,  that  from  her  youth  up  the  burden  of  a 
tragic  fancy  had  lain  hard  upon  her  ;  that  she 


'SHIRLEY:  283 

had  seen  the  face  of  sorrow  close,  meeting  that 
Medusa-glance  with  rigid  and  defiant  fortitude. 
So  much  we  learn  ;  but  this  is  very  little  —  a 
one-sided  truth  and  therefore  scarcely  a  truth  at 
all. 

Charlotte's  portrait  gives  us  another  view,  and 
fortunately  there  are  still  a  few  alive  of  the  not 
numerous  friends  of  Emily  Bronte.  Every  trait, 
every  reminiscence,  paints  in  darker,  clearer  lines, 
the  impression  of  character  which  '  Shirley ' 
leaves  upon  us.  Shirley  is  indeed  the  exterior 
Emily,  the  Emily  that  was  to  be  met  and  known 
thirty-five  years  ago,  only  a  little  polished,  with 
the  angles  a  little  smoothed,  by  a  sister's  anxious 
care.  The  nobler  Emily,  deeply  suffering,  brood- 
ing, pitying,  creating,  is  only  to  be  found  in  a 
stray  word  here  and  there,  a  chance  memory,  a 
happy  answer,  gathered  from  the  pages  of  her 
work,  and  the  loving  remembrance  of  her  friends; 
but  these  remnants  are  so  direct,  unusual,  per- 
sonal, and  characteristic,  this  outline  is  of  so  de- 
cided a  type,  that  it  affects  us  more  distinctly 
than  many  stippled  and  varnished  portraits  do. 

But  to  know  how  Emily  Bronte  looked,  moved, 
sat,  and  spoke,  we  still  return  to  '  Shirley.'  A 
host  of  corroborating  memories  start  up  in  turn- 
ing the  pages.  Who  but  Emily  was  always 
accompanied  by  a  "  rather  large,  strong,  and 
fierce-looking  dog,  very  ugly,  being  of  a  breed 


284  EMILY  BRONTE. 

between  a  mastiff  and  a  bulldog  "  ?  it  is  familiar 
to  us  as  Una's  lion  ;  we  do  not  need  to  be  told, 
Currer  Bell,  that  she  always  sat  on  the  hearthrug 
of  nights,  with  her  hand  on  his  head,  reading  a 
book  ;  we  remember  well  how  necessary  it  was 
to  secure  him  as  an  ally  in  winning  her  affection. 
Has  not  a  dear  friend  informed  us  that  she  first 
obtained  Emily's  heart  by  meeting,  without  ap- 
parent fear  or  shrinking,  Keeper's  huge  springs 
of  demonstrative  welcome  ? 

Certainly  "  Captain  Keeldar,"  with  her  cavalier 
airs,  her  ready  disdain,  her  love  of  independence, 
does  bring  back  with  vivid  brilliance  the  memory 
of  our  old  acquaintance,  "the  Major."  We  rec- 
ognize that  pallid  slimness,  masking  an  elastic 
strength  which  seems  impenetrable  to  fatigue  — 
and  we  sigh,  recalling  a  passage  in  Anne's  let- 
ters, recording  how,  when  rheumatism,  coughs, 
and  influenza  made  an  hospital  of  Haworth  Vic- 
arage during  the  visitations  of  the  dread  east 
wind,  Emily  alone  looked  on  and  wondered  why 
any  one  should  be  ill  —  "  she  considers  it  a  very 
uninteresting  wind  ;  it  does  not  affect  her  ner- 
vous system."  We  know  her,  too,  by  her  kind- 
ness to  her  inferiors.  A  hundred  little  stories 
throng  our  minds.  Unforgotten  delicacies  made 
with  her  own  hands  for  her  servant's  friend,  yet 
remembered  visits  of  Martha's  little  cousin  to  the 
kitchen,  where  Miss  Emily  would  bring  in  her 


'SHIRLEY: 


285 


own  chair  for  the  ailing  girl  ;  anecdotes  of  her 
early  rising  through  many  years  to  do  the  hard- 
est work,  because  the  first  servant  was  too  old, 
and  the  second  too  young  to  get  up  so  soon  ; 
and  she,  Emily,  was  so  strong.  A  hundred  little 
sacrifices,  dearer  to  remembrance  than  Shirley's 
open  purse,  awaken  in  our  hearts  and  remind  us 
that,  after  all,  Emily  was  the  nobler  and  more 
lovable  heroine  of  the  twain. 

How  characteristic,  too,  the  touch  that  makes 
her  scornful  of  all  that  is  dominant,  dogmatic, 
avowedly  masculine  in  the  men  of  her  acquaint- 
ance ;  and  gentleness  itself  to  the  poetic  Philip 
Nunnely,  the  gay,  boyish  Mr.  Sweeting,  the  sen- 
timental Louis,  the  lame,  devoted  boy-cousin 
who  loves  her  in  pathetic  canine  fashion.  That 
courage,  too,  was  hers.  Not  only  Shirley's  flesh, 
but  Emily's,  felt  the  tearing  fangs  of  the  mad 
dog  to  whom  she  had  charitably  offered  food  and 
water  ;  not  only  Shirley's  flesh,  but  hers,  shrank 
from  the  light  scarlet,  glowing  tip  of  the  Italian 
iron  with  which  she  straightway  cauterized  the 
wound,  going  quickly  into  the  laundry  and 
operating  on  herself  without  a  word  to  any 
one. 

Emily,  also,  single-handed  and  unarmed,  pun- 
ished her  great  bulldog  for  his  household  misde- 
meanors, in  defiance  of  an  express  warning  not 
to  strike  the  brute,  lest  his  uncertain  temper 


286  EMILY  BRONTE. 

should  rouse  him  to  fly  at  the  striker's  throat. 
And  it  was  she  who  fomented  his  bruises.  This 
prowess  and  tenderness  of  Shirley's  is  an  old 
story  to  us. 

And  Shirley's  love  of  picturesque  and  splendid 
raiment  is  not  without  an  echo  in  our  memories. 
It  was  Emily  who,  shopping  in  Bradford  with 
Charlotte  and  her  friend,  chose  a  white  stuff  pat- 
terned with  lilac  thunder  and  lightning,  to  the 
scarcely  concealed  horror  of  her  more  sober  com- 
panions. And  she  looked  well  in  it ;  a  tall,  lithe 
creature,  with  a  grace  half-queenly,  half-untamed 
in  her  sudden,  supple  movements,  wearing  with 
picturesque  negligence  her  ample  purple-splashed 
skirts  ;  her  face  clear  and  pale  ;  her  very  dark 
and  plenteous  brown  hair  fastened  up  behind 
with  a  Spanish  comb  ;  her  large  gray-hazel  eyes, 
now  full  of  indolent,  indulgent  humor,  now  glim- 
mering with  hidden  meanings,  now  quickened 
into  flame  by  a  flash  of  indignation,  "  a  red  ray 
piercing  the  dew." 

She,  too,  had  Shirley's  taste  for  the  manage- 
ment of  business.  We  remember  Charlotte's 
disquiet  when  Emily  insisted  on  investing  Miss 
Branwell's  legacies  in  York  and  Midland  Rail- 
way shares.  "  She  managed,  in  a  most  hand- 
some and  able  manner  for  me  when  *I  was  in 
Brussels,  and  prevented  by  distance  from  look- 
ing after  our  interests,  therefore  I  will  let  her 


'SHIRLEY: 


287 


manage  still  and  take  the  consequences.  Dis- 
interested and  energetic  she  certainly  is ;  and, 
if  she  be  not  quite  so  tractable  or  open  to  con- 
viction as  I  could  wish,  I  must  remember  per- 
fection is  not  the  lot  of  humanity,  and,  as  long 
as  we  can  regard  those  whom  we  love,  and  to 
whom  we  are  closely  allied,  with  profound  and 
never-shaken  esteem,  it  is  a  small  thing  that 
they  should  vex  us  occasionally  by  what  appear 
to  us  headstrong  and  unreasonable  notions."  x 

So  speaks  the  kind  elder  sister,  the  author 
of  '  Shirley.'  But  there  are  some  who  will  never 
love  either  type  or  portrait.  Sydney  Dobell 
spoke  a  bitter  half-truth  when,  ignorant  of  Shir- 
ley's real  identity,  he  declared  :  "  We  have  only 
to  imagine  Shirley  Keeldar  poor  to  imagine  her 
repulsive."  The  silenced  pride,  the  thwarted 
generosity,  the  unspoken  power,  the  contained 
passion,  of  such  a  nature  are  not  qualities  which 
touch  the  world  when  it  finds  them  in  an  ob- 
scure and  homely  woman.  Even  now,  very 
many  will  not  love  a  heroine  so  independent  of 
their  esteem.  They  will  resent  the  frank  im- 
periousness,  caring  not  to  please,  the  unyielding 
strength,  the  absence  of  trivial  submissive  ten- 
dernesses, for  which  she  makes  amends  by  such 
large  humane  and  generous  compassion.  "  In 
Emily's  nature,"  says  her  sister,  "  the  extremes 

1  Mrs.  Gaskell. 


288  EMILY  BRONTE. 

of  vigor  and  simplicity  seemed  to  meet.  Under 
an  unsophisticated  culture,  inartificial  taste  and 
an  unpretending  outside,  lay  a  power  and  fire 
that  might  have  informed  the  brain  and  kindled 
the  veins  of  a  hero;  but  she  had  no  worldly 
wisdom  —  her  powers  were  unadapted  to  the 
practical  business  of  life  —  she  would  fail  to  de- 
fend her  most  manifest  rights,  to  consult  her 
legitimate  advantage.  An  interpreter  ought  al- 
ways to  have  stood  between  her  and  the  world. 
Her  will  was  not  very  flexible  and  it  generally 
opposed  her  interest.  Her  temper  was  mag- 
nanimous, but  warm  and  sudden  ;  her  spirit 
altogether  unbending."1 

So  speaks  Emily's  inspired  interpreter,  whose 
genius  has  not  made  her  sister  popular.  '  Shir- 
ley' is  not  a  favorite  with  a  modern  public. 
Emily  Bronte  was  born  out  of  date.  Athene, 
leading  the  nymphs  in  their  headlong  chase 
down  the  rocky  spurs  of  Olympus,  and  stopping 
in  full  career  to  lift  in  her  arms  the  weanlings, 
tender  as  dew,  or  the  chance-hurt  cubs  of  the 
mountain,  might  have  chosen  her  as  her  hunt- 
fellow.  Or  Brunhilda,  the  strong  Valkyr,  dread- 
ing the  love  of  man,  whose  delight  is  battle  and 
the  wild  summits  of  hills,  forfeiting  her  immor- 
tality to  shield  the  helpless  and  the  weak ;  she 
would  have  recognized  the  kinship  of  this  last- 

1  'Biographical  Notice.'     C.  Bronte. 


'SHIRLEY?  289 

born  sister.  But  we  moderns  care  not  for  these. 
Our  heroines  are  Juliet,  Desdemona,  and  Imogen, 
our  examples  Dorothea  Brooke  and  Laura  Pen- 
dennis,  women  whose  charm  is  a  certain  fra- 
grance of  affection.  Shirley  is  too  independent 
for  our  taste;  and,  for  the  rest,  we  are  all  in 
love  wjth  Caroline  Helstone. 

Disinterested,  headstrong,  noble  Emily  Bronte, 
at  this  time,  while  your  magical  sister  was  weav- 
ing for  you,  with  golden  words,  a  web  of  fate  as 
fortunate  as  dreams,  the  true  Norns  were  spin- 
ning a  paler  shrouding  garment.  You  were 
never  to  see  the  brightest  things  in  life.  Sis- 
terly love,  free  solitude,  unpraised  creation,  were 
to  remain  your  most  poignant  joys.  No  touch 
of  love,  no  hint  of  fame,  no  hours  of  ease,  lie  for 
you  across  the  knees  of  Fate.  Neither  rose 
nor  laurel  will  be  shed  on  your  coffined  form. 
Meanwhile,  your  sister  writes  and  dreams  for 
Shirley.  Terrible  difference  between  ideas  and 
truth ;  wonderful  magic  of  the  unreal  to  take 
their  sting  from  the  veritable  wounds  we  en- 
dure ! 

Neither  rose  nor  laurel  will  we  lay  reverently 
for  remembrance  over  the  tomb  where  .you  sleep  ; 
but  the  flower  that  was  always  your  own,  the 
wild,  dry  heather.  You,  who  were,  in  your 
sister's  phrase,  "moorish,  wild  and  knotty  as  a 
root  of  heath,"  you  grew  to  your  own  perfection 
19 


290 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


on  the  waste  where  no  laurel  rustles  its  polished 
leaves,  where  no  sweet,  fragile  rose  ever  opened 
in  the  heart  of  June.  The  storm  and  the  winter 
darkness,  the  virgin  earth,  the  blasting  winds  of 
March,  would  have  slain  them  utterly ;  but  all 
these  served  to  make  the  heather  light  and 
strong,  to  flush  its  bells  with  a  ruddier  purple, 
to  fill  its  cells  with  honey  more  pungently  sweet. 
The  cold  wind  and  wild  earth  make  the  heather ; 
it  would  not  grow  in  the  sheltered  meadows. 
And  you,  had  you  known  the  fate  that  love 
would  have  chosen,  you  too  would  not  have 
thrived  in  your  full  bloom.  Another  happy, 
prosperous  north-country  matron  would  be  dead. 
But  now  you  live,  still  singing  of  freedom,  the 
undying  soul  of  courage  and  loneliness,  another 
voice  in  the  wind,  another  glory  on  the  moun- 
tain-tops, Emily  Bronte,  the  author  of  '  Wither- 
ing Heights.' 


CHAPTER    XVII. 

branwell's  end. 

The  autumn  of  the  year  1848  was  tempestuous 
and  wild,  with  sudden  and  frequent  changes  of 
temperature,  and  cold  penetrating  wind.  Those 
chilling  blasts  whirling  round  the  small  gray 
parsonage  on  its  exposed  hill-top,  brought  sick- 
ness in  their  train.  Anne  and  Charlotte  drooped 
and  languished ;  Branwell,  too,  was  ill.  His 
constitution  seemed  shattered  by  excesses  which 
he  had  not  the  resolution  to  forego.  Often  he 
would  sleep  most  of  the  day ;  or  at  least  sit 
dozing  hour  after  hour  in  a  lethargy  of  weak- 
ness ;  but  with  the  night  this  apathy  would 
change  to  violence  and  suffering.  "  Papa,  and 
sometimes  all  of  us  have  sad  nights  with  him," 
writes  Charlotte  in  the  last  days  of  July. 

Yet,  so  well  the  little  household  knew  the 
causes  of  this  reverse,  no  immediate  danger  was 
suspected.  He  was  weak,  certainly,  and  his 
appetite  failed ;  but  opium-eaters  are  not  strong 
nor  hungry.  Neither  Branwell  himself,  nor  his 
relations,  nor  any   physician   consulted   in   his 


292  EMILY  BRONTE. 

case,  thought  it  one  of  immediate  danger ;  it 
seemed  as  if  this  dreary  life  might  go  on  for- 
ever, marking  its  hours  by  a  perpetual  swing 
and  rebound  of  excess  and  suffering. 

During  this  melancholy  autumn  Mr.  Grundy 
was  staying  at  Skipton,  a  town  about  seventeen 
miles  from  Haworth.  Mindful  of  his  old  friend, 
he  invited  Branwell  to  be  his  guest ;  but  the 
dying  youth  was  too  weak  to  make  even  that 
little  journey,  although  he  longed  for  the  excite- 
ment of  change.  Mr.  Grundy  was  so  much 
moved  by  the  miserable  tone  of  Branwell's  letter 
that  he  drove  over  to  Haworth  to  see  for  himself 
what  ailed  his  old  companion.  He  was  very 
shocked  at  the  change.  Pale,  sunk,  tremulous, 
utterly  wrecked;  there  was  no  hope  for  Bran- 
well  now ;  he  had  again  taken  to  eating  opium. 

Anything  for  excitement,  for  a  variation  to  his 
incessant  sorrow.  Weak  as  he  was,  and  scarcely 
able  to  leave  his  bed,  he  craved  piteously  for  an 
appointment  of  any  kind,  any  reason  for  leaving 
Haworth,  for  getting  quit  of  his  old  thoughts, 
any  post  anywhere  for  Heaven's  sake  so  it  were 
out  of  their  whispering.     He  had  not  long  to  wait. 

Later  in  that  cold  and  bleak  September  Mr. 
Grundy  again  visited  Haworth.  He  sent  to  the 
Vicarage  for  Branwell,  and  ordered  dinner  and 
a  fire  to  welcome  him ;  the  room  looked  cosy 
and  warm.     While  Mr.  Grundy  sat  waiting  for 


BRANWELUS  END. 


293 


his  guest,  the  Vicar  was  shown  in.  He,  too, 
was  strangely  altered  ;  much  of  his  old  stiffness 
of  manner  gone  ;  and  it  was  with  genuine  affec- 
tion that  he  spoke  of  Branwell,  and  almost  with 
despair  that  he  touched  on  his  increasing  mis- 
eries. When  Mr.  Grundy's  message  had  come, 
the  poor,  self-distraught  sufferer  had  been  lying 
ill  in  bed,  apparently  too  weak  to  move ;  but  the 
feverish  restlessness  which  marked  his  latter 
years  was  too  strong  to  resist  the  chance  of  ex- 
citement. He  had  insisted  upon  coming,  so  his 
father  said,  and  would  immediately  be  ready. 
Then  the  sorrowful,  half-blind  old  gentleman 
made  his  adieus  to  his  son's  host,  and  left  the  inn. 
"  Presently  the  door  opened  cautiously,  and  a 
head  appeared.  It  was  a  mass  of  red,  unkempt, 
uncut  hair,  wildly  floating  round  a  great,  gaunt 
forehead ;  the  cheeks  yellow  and  hollow,  the 
mouth  fallen,  the  thin  white  lips  not  trembling 
but  shaking,  the  sunken  eyes,  once  small,  now 
glaring  with  the  light  of  madness  —  all  told  the 
sad  tale  but  too  surely.  I  hastened  to  my  friend, 
greeted  him  in  my  gayest  manner,  as  I  knew  he 
best  liked,  drew  him  quickly  into  the  room,  and 
forced  upon  him  a  stiff  glass  of  hot  brandy. 
Under  its  influence  and  that  of  the  bright, 
cheerful  surroundings,  he  looked  frightened  — 
frightened  of  himself.  He  glanced  at  me  a  mo- 
ment, and  muttered  something  of  leaving  a  warm 


294 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


bed  to  come  out  in  the  cold  night.  Another 
glass  of  brandy,  and  returning  warmth  gradually 
brought  him  back  to  something  like  the  Bronte 
of  old.  He  even  ate  some  dinner,  a  thing  which 
he  said  he  had  not  done  for  long  ;  so  our  last 
interview  was  pleasant  though  grave.  I  never 
knew  his  intellect  clearer.  He  described  him- 
self as  waiting  anxiously  for  death  —  indeed, 
longing  for  it,  and  happy,  in  these  his  sane  mo- 
ments, to  think  it  was  so  near.  He  once  again 
declared  that  that  death  would  be  due  to  the 
story  I  knew,  and  to  nothing  else. 

"  When  at  last  I  was  compelled  to  leave,  he 
quietly  drew  from  his  coat-sleeve  a  carving-knife, 
placed  it  on  the  table,  and,  holding  me  by  both 
hands,  said  that,  having  given  up  all  hopes  of 
ever  seeing  me  again,  he  imagined  when  my 
message  came  that  it  was  a  call  from  Satan. 
Dressing  himself,  he  took  the  knife  which  he 
had  long  secreted,  and  came  to  the  inn,  with  a 
full  determination  to  rush  into  the  room  and 
stab  the  occupant.  In  the  excited  state  of  his 
mind,  he  did  not  recognize  me  when  he  opened 
the  door,  but  my  voice  and  manner  conquered 
him,  and  'brought  him  home  to  himself,'  as  he 
expressed  it.  I  left  him  standing  bare-headed  in 
the  road  with  bowed  form  and  dropping  tears."1 

He  went  home,  and  a  few  days  afterwards  he 

1  Pictures  of  the  Past.  * 


BRA  NW ELLS  END. 


295 


died.  That  little  intervening  time  was  happier 
and  calmer  than  any  he  had  known  for  years ; 
his  evil  habits,  his  hardened  feelings,  slipped,  like 
a  mask,  from  the  soul  already  touched  by  the 
final  quiet.  He  was  singularly  altered  and  soft- 
ened, gentle  and  loving  to  the  father  and  sisters 
who  had  borne  so  much  at  his  hands.  It  was  as 
though  he  had  awakened  from  the  fierce  delir- 
ium of  a  fever ;  weak  though  he  was  and  shat- 
tered, they  could  again  recognize  in  him  their 
Branwell  of  old  times,  the  hope  and  promise  of 
all  their  early  dreams.  Neither  they  nor  he 
dreamed  that  the  end  was  so  near ;  he  had  often 
talked  of  death,  but  now  that  he  stood  in  the 
shadow  of  its  wings,  he  was  unconscious  of  that 
subduing  presence.  And  it  is  pleasant  to  think 
that  the  sweet  demeanor  of  his  last  days  was  not 
owing  to  the  mere  cowardly  fear  of  death  ;  but 
rather  a  return  of  the  soul  to  its  true  self,  a  nat- 
ural dropping-off  of  all  extraneous  fever  and 
error,  before  the  suffering  of  its  life  should  close. 
Half  an  hour  before  he  died  Branwell  was  un- 
conscious of  danger ;  he  was  out  in  the  village 
two  days  before,  and  was  only  confined  to  bed 
one  single  day.  The  next  morning  was  a  Sun- 
day, the  24th  of  September.  Branwell  awoke 
to  it  perfectly  conscious,  and  through  the  holy 
quiet  of  that  early  morning  he  lay,  troubled  by 
neither   fear   nor   suffering,  while    the   bells  of 


296 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


the  neighboring  church,  the  neighboring  tower 
whose  fabulous  antiquity  had  furnished  him  with 
many  a  boyish  pleasantry,  called  the  villagers  to 
worship.  They  all  knew  him,  all  as  they  passed 
the  house  would  look  up  and  wonder  if  "  t'  Vic- 
ar's Patrick"  were  better  or  worse.  But  those  of 
the  Parsonage  were  not  at  church :  they  watched 
in  Branwell's  hushed  and  peaceful  chamber. 

Suddenly  a  terrible  change  came  over  the 
quiet  face ;  there  was  no  mistaking  the  sudden, 
heart-shaking  summons.  And  now  Charlotte 
sank ;  always  nervous  and  highly  strung,  the 
mere  dread  of  what  might  be  to  come,  laid  her 
prostrate.  They  led  her  away,  and  for  a  week 
she  kept  her  bed  in  sickness  and  fever.  But 
Bran  well,  the  summoned,  the  actual  sufferer, 
met  death  with  a  different  face.  He  insisted 
upon  getting  up ;  if  he  had  succumbed  to  the 
horrors  of  life  he  would  defy  the  horrors  of  ex- 
tinction ;  he  would  die  as  he  thought  no  one  had 
ever  died  before,  standing.  So,  like  some  an- 
cient Celtic  hero,  when  the  last  agony  began,  he 
rose  to  his  feet ;  hushed  and  awe-stricken,  the 
old  father,  praying  Anne,  loving  Emily,  looked 
on.  He  rose  to.  his  feet  and  died  erect  after 
twenty  minutes'  struggle. 

They  found  his  pockets  filled  with  the  letters 
of  the  woman  he  had  so  passionately  loved. 

He  was  dead,  this  Branwell  who  had  wrung 


BRA  NW ELL'S  END. 


29; 


the  hearts  of  his  household  day  by  day,  who 
drank  their  tears  as  wine.  He  was  dead,  and 
now  they  mourned  him  with  acute  and  bitter 
pain.  "  All  his  vices  were  and  are  nothing  now  ; 
we  remember  only  his  woes,"  writes  Charlotte. 
They  buried  him  in  the  same  vault  that  had  been 
opened  twenty-three  years  ago  to  receive  the 
childish,  wasted  corpses  of  Elizabeth  and  Maria- 
Sunday  came  round,  recalling  minute  by  minute 
the  ebbing  of  his  life,  and  Emily  Bronte,  pallid 
and  dressed  in  black,  can  scarcely  have  heard 
her  brother's  funeral  sermon  for  looking  at  the 
stone  which  hid  so  many  memories,  such  useless 
compassion.  She  took  her  brother's  death  very 
much  to  heart,  growing  thin  and  pale  and  saying 
nothing.  She  had  made  an  effort  to  go  to  church 
that  Sunday,  and  as  she  sat  there,  quiet  and 
hollow-eyed,  perhaps  she  felt  it  was  well  that 
she  had  looked  upon  his  resting-place,  upon  the 
grave  where  so  much  of  her  heart  was  buried- 
For,  after  his  funeral,  she  never  rallied  ;  a  cold 
and  cough,  taken  then,  gained  fearful  hold  upon 
her,  and  she  never  went  out  of  doors  after  that 
memorable  Sunday. 

But  looking  on  her  quiet,  uncomplaining  eyes, 
you  would  not  have  guessed  so  much. 

"  Emily  and  Anne  are  pretty  well,"  says  Char- 
lotte, on  the  9th  of  October,  "  though  Anne  is 
always  delicate  and  Emily  has  a  cold  and  cough 
at  present." 


CHAPTER   XVIII. 


EMILYS    DEATH. 


Already  by  the  29th  of  October  of  this  melan- 
choly year  of  1848  Emily's  cough  and  cold  had 
made  such  progress  as  to  alarm  her  careful  elder 
sister.  Before  Branwell's  death  she  had  been, 
to  all  appearance,  the  one  strong  member  of  a 
delicate  family.  By  the  side  of  fragile  Anne 
(already,  did  they  but  know  it,  advanced  in 
tubercular  consumption),  of  shattered  Branwell, 
of  Charlotte,  ever  nervous  and  ailing,  this  tall, 
muscular  Emily  had  appeared  a  tower  of  strength. 
Working  early  and  late,  seldom  tired  and  never 
complaining,  finding  her  best  relaxation  in  long, 
rough  walks  on  the  moors,  she  seemed  unlikely 
to  give  them  any  poignant  anxiety.  But  the 
seeds  of  phthisis  lay  deep  down  beneath  this  fair 
show  of  life  and  strength  ;  the  shock  of  sorrow 
which  she  experienced  for  her  brother's  deatl 
developed  them  with  alarming  rapidity. 

The  weariness  of  absence  had  always  provec 
too  much  for  Emily's  strength.  Away  from 
home  we  have  seen  how  she  pined  and  sickened. 


EMILY'S  DEATH.  299 

Exile  made  her  thin  and  wan,  menaced  the  very- 
springs  of  life.  And  now  she  must  endure  an 
inevitable  and  unending  absence,  an  exile  from 
which  there  could  be  no  return.  The  strain  was 
too  tight,  the  wrench  too  sharp  :  Emily  could 
not  bear  it  and  live.  In  such  a  loss  as  hers,  be- 
reaved of  a  helpless  sufferer,  the  mourning  of 
those  who  remain  is  imbittered  and  quickened  a 
hundred  times  a  day  when  the  blank  minutes 
come  round  for  which  the  customary  duties  are 
missing,  when  the  unwelcome  leisure  hangs 
round  the  weary  soul  like  a  shapeless  and  en- 
cumbering garment.  It  was  Emily  who  had 
chiefly  devoted  herself  to  Branwell.  He  being 
dead,  the  motive  of  her  life  seemed  gone. 

Had  she  been  stronger,  had  she  been  more 
careful  of  herself  at  the  beginning  of  her  illness, 
she  would  doubtless  have  recovered,  and  we  shall 
never  know  the  difference  in  our  literature  which 
a  little  precaution  might  have  made.  But  Emily 
was  accustomed  to  consider  herself  hardy  ;  she 
was  so  used  to  wait  upon  others  that  to  lie  down 
and  be  waited  on  would  have  appeared  to  her 
ignominious  and  absurd.  Both  her  independence 
and  her  unselfishness  made  her  very  chary  of  giv- 
ing trouble.  It  is,  moreover,  extremely  probable 
that  she  never  realized  the  extent  of  her  own 
illness  ;  consumption  is  seldom  a  malady  that 
despairs ;  attacking  the  body  it  leaves  the  spirit 


300 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


free,  the  spirit  which  cannot  realize  a  danger  by 
which  it  is  not  injured.  A  little  later  on  when 
it  was  Anne's  turn  to  suffer,  she  is  choosing 
her  spring  bonnet  four  days  before  her  death. 
Which  of  us  does  not  remember  some  such  pa- 
thetic tale  of  the  heart-wringing,  vain  confidence 
of  those  far  gone  in  phthisis,  who  bear  on  their 
faces  the  marks  of  death  for  all  eyes  but  their 
own  to  read  ? 

To  those  who  look  on,  there  is  no  worse  agony 
than  to  watch  the  brave  bearing  of  these  others 
unconscious  of  the  sudden  grave  at  their  feet. 
Charlotte  and  Anne  looked  on  and  trembled. 
On  the  29th  of  October,  Charlotte,  still  delicate 
from  the  bilious  fever  which  had  prostrated  her 
on  the  day  of  Branwell's  death,  writes  these 
words  already  full  of  foreboding  : 

"  I  feel  much  more  uneasy  about  my  sister 
than  myself  just  now.  Emily's  cold  and  cough 
are  very  obstinate.  I  fear  she  has  pain  in  her 
chest,  and  I  sometimes  catch  a  shortness  in  her 
breathing  when  she  has  moved  at  all  quickly. 
She  looks  very  thin  and  pale.  Her  reserved 
nature  occasions  me  great  uneasiness  of  mind. 
It  is  useless  to  question  her ;  you  get  no  answer. 
It  is  still  more  useless  to  recommend  remedies  ; 
they  are  never  adopted."  1 

It  was,  in  fact,  an  acute  inflammation  of  the 

1  Mrs.  Gaskell. 


EMILYS  DEATH.  301 

lungs  which  this  unfortunate  sufferer  was  trying 
to  subdue  by  force  of  courage.  To  persons  of 
strong  will  it  is  difficult  to  realize  that  their  dis- 
ease is  not  in  their  own  control.  To  be  ill,  is 
with  them  an  act  of  acquiescence;  they  have 
consented  to  the  demands  of  their  feeble  body. 
When  necessity  demands  the  sacrifice,  it  seems 
to  them  so  easy  to  deny  themselves  the  rest,  the 
indulgence.  They  set  their  will  against  their 
weakness,  and  mean  to  conquer.  They  will  not 
give  up. 

Emily  would  not  give  up.  She  felt  herself 
doubly  necessary  to  the  household  in  this  hour 
of  trial.  Charlotte  was  still  very  weak  and  ail- 
ing. Anne,  her  dear  little  sister,  was  unusually 
delicate  and  frail.  Even  her  father  had  not 
quite  escaped.  That  she,  Emily,  who  had  always 
been  relied  upon  for  strength  and  courage  and 
endurance,  should  show  herself  unworthy  of  the 
trust  when  she  was  most  sorely  needed  ;  that 
she,  so  inclined  to  take  all  duties  on  herself,  so 
necessary  to  the  daily  management  of  the  house, 
should  throw  up  her  charge  in  this  moment  of 
trial,  cast  away  her  arms  in  the  moment  of  battle, 
and  give  her  fellow-sufferers  the  extra  burden  of 
her  weakness,  —  such  a  thing  was  impossible  to 
her. 

So  the  vain  struggle  went  on.  She  would 
resign  no  one  of  her  duties,  and  it  was  not  till 


302 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


within  the  last  weeks  of  her  life  that  she  would 
so  much  as  suffer  the  servant  to  rise  before  her 
in  the  morning  and  take  the  early  work.  She 
would  not  endure  to  hear  of  remedies  ;  declaring 
that  she  was  not  ill,  that  she  would  soon  be  well, 
in  the  pathetic  self-delusion  of  high-spirited 
weakness.  And  Charlotte  and  Anne,  for  whose 
sake  she  made  this  sacrifice,  suffered  terribly 
thereby.  Willingly,  thankfully  would  they  have 
taken  all  her  duties  upon  them  ;  they  burned  to 
be  up  and  doing.  But  —  seeing  how  weak  she 
was  —  they  dare  not  cross  her ;  they  had  to  sit 
still  and  endure  to  see  her  labor  for  their  comfort 
with  faltering  and  death-cold  hands. 

"  Day  by  day,"  says  Charlotte,  "  day  by  day, 
when  I  saw  with  what  a  front  she  met  suffering; 
I  looked  on  her  with  a  wonder  of  anguish  and 
love.  I  have  seen  nothing  like  it ;  but,  indeed, 
I  have  never  seen  her  parallel  in  anything. 
Stronger  than  a  man,  simpler  than  a  child,  her 
nature  stood  alone.  The  awful  point  was  that, 
while  full  of  ruth  for  others,  on  herself  she  had 
no  pity  ;  the  spirit  was  inexorable  to  the  flesh ; 
from  the  trembling  hand,  the  unnerved  limbs, 
the  fading  eyes,  the  same  service  was  exacted  as 
they  had  rendered  in  health.  To  stand  by  and 
witness  this,  and  not  dare  to  remonstrate,  was  a 
pain  no  words  can  render." 

The  time  went  on.     Anxious  to  try  what  in- 


EMILY'S  DEATH. 


303 


fluence  some  friend,  not  of  their  own  household, 
might  exert  upon  this  wayward  sister,  Charlotte 
thought  of  inviting  Miss  Nussey  to  Haworth. 
Emily  had  ever  been  glad  to  welcome  her.  But 
when  the  time  came  it  was  found  that  the  least 
disturbance  of  the  day's  routine  would  only 
make  Emily's  burden  heavier.  And  that  scheme, 
too,  was  relinquished. 

Another  month  had  gone.  Emily,  paler  and 
thinner,  but  none  the  less  resolute,  fulfilled  her 
duties  with  customary  exactness,  and  insisted  on 
her  perfect  health  with  defiant  fortitude.  On  the 
23d  of  November,  Charlotte  writes  again  : 

"  I  told  you  Emily  was  ill  in  my  last  letter. 
She  has  not  rallied  yet.  She  is  very  ill.  I 
believe  if  you  were  to  see  her  your  impression 
would  be  that  there  is  no  hope.  A  more  hollow, 
wasted,  pallid  aspect  I  have  not  beheld.  The 
deep,  tight  cough  continues  ;  the  breathing  after 
the  least  exertion  is  a  rapid  pant ;  and  these 
symptoms  are  accompanied  by  pains  in  the  chest 
and  side.  Her  pulse,  the  only  time  she  allowed 
it  to  be  felt,  was  found  to  beat  115  per  minute. 
In  this  state  she  resolutely  refuses  to  see  a  doc- 
tor ;  she  will  give  no  explanation  of  her  feel- 
ings ;  she  will  scarcely  allow  her  feelings  to  be 
alluded  to." 

"  No  poisoning  doctor  "  should  come  near  her, 
Emily  declared  with  the  irritability  of  her  dis- 


304 


EMILY  BRONTE. 


ease.  It  was  an  insult  to  her  will,  her  resolute 
endeavors.  She  was  not,  would  not,  be  ill,  and 
could  therefore  need  no  cure.  Perhaps  she  felt, 
deep  in  her  heart,  the  conviction  that  her  com- 
plaint was  mortal ;  that  a  delay  in  the  sentence 
was  all  that  care  and  skill  could  give  ;  for  she 
had  seen  Maria  and  Elizabeth  fade  and  die,  and 
only  lately  the  physicians  had  not  saved  her 
brother. 

But  Charlotte,  naturally,  did  not  feel  the  same. 
Unknown  to  Emily,  she  wrote  to  a  great  London 
doctor,  drawing  up  a  statement  of  the  case  and 
symptoms  as  minute  and  careful  as  she  could 
give.  But  either  this  diagnosis  by  guesswork 
was  too  imperfect,  or  the  physician  saw  that 
there  was  no  hope ;  for  his  opinion  was  ex- 
pressed too  obscurely  to  be  of  any  use.  He 
sent  a  bottle  of  medicine,  but  Emily  would  not 
take  it. 

December  came,  and  still  the  wondering,  anx- 
ious sisters  knew  not  what  to  think.  By  this 
time  Mr.  Bronte  also  had  perceived  the  danger 
of  Emily's  state,  and  he  was  very  anxious. 
Yet  she  still  denied  that  she  was  ill  with  any- 
thing more  grave  than  a  passing  weakness ; 
and  the  pain  in  her  side  and  chest  appeared  to 
diminish.  Sometimes  the  little  household  was 
tempted  to  take  her  at  her  word,  and  believe 
that  soon,  with  the  spring,  she  would  recover; 


EMILY'S  DEATH. 


305 


and  then,  hearing  her  cough,  listening  to  the 
gasping  breath  with  which  she  climbed  the  short 
staircase,  looking  on  the  extreme  emaciation  of 
her  form,  the  wasted  hands,  the  hollow  eyes, 
their  hearts  would  suddenly  fail.  Life  was  a 
daily  contradiction  of  hope  and  fear. 

The  days  drew  on  towards  Christmas  ;  it  was 
already  the  middle*  of  December,  and  still  Emily 
was  about  the  house,  able  to  wait  upon  herself, 
to  sew  for  the  others,  to  take  an  active  share  in 
the  duties  of  the  day.  She  always  fed  the  dogs 
herself.  One  Monday  evening,  it  must  have 
been  about  the  14th  of  December,  she  rose  as 
usual  to  give  the  creatures  their  supper.  She 
got  up,  walking  slowly,  holding  out  in  her  thin 
hands  an  apronful  of  broken  meat  and  bread. 
But  when  she  reached  the  flagged  passage  the 
cold  took  her  ;  she  staggered  on  the  uneven 
pavement  and  fell  against  the  wall.  Her  sisters, 
who  had  been  sadly  following  her,  unseen,  came 
forwards  much  alarmed  and  begged  her  to  desist ; 
but,  smiling  wanly,  she  went  on  and  gave  Floss 
and  Keeper  their  last  supper  from  her  hands. 

The  next  morning  she  was  worse.  Before  her 
waking,  her  watching  sisters  heard  the  low, 
unconscious  moaning  that  tells  of  suffering  con- 
tinued even  in  sleep ;  and  they  feared  for  what 
the  coming  year  might  hold  in  store.  Of  the 
nearness  of  the  end  they  did  not  dream.     Char- 


3o6  EMILY  BRONTE.      ' 

lotte  had  been  out  over  the  moors,  searching 
every  glen  and  hollow  for  a  sprig  of  heather, 
however  pale  and  dry,  to  take  to  her  moor-loving 
sister.  But  Emily  looked  on  the  flower  laid  on 
her  pillow  with  indifferent  eyes.  She  was  al- 
ready estranged  and  alienate  from  life. 

Nevertheless  she  persisted  in  rising,  dressing 
herself  alone,  and  doing  everything  for  herself. 
A  fire  had  been  lit  in  the  room,  and  Emily  sat 
on  the  hearth  to  comb  her  hair.  She  was 
thinner  than  ever  now  —  the  tall,  loose-jointed 
"  slinky  "  girl  —  her  hair  in  its  plenteous  dark 
abundance  was  all  of  her  that  was  not  marked 
by  the  branding  finger  of  death.  She  sat  on  the 
hearth  combing  her  long  brown  hair.  But  soon 
the  comb  slipped  from  her  feeble  grasp  into  the 
cinders.  She,  the  intrepid,  active  Emily,  watched 
it  burn  and  smoulder,  too  weak  to  lift  it,  while 
the  nauseous,  hateful  odor  of  burnt  bone  rose 
into  her  face.  At  last  the  servant  came  in : 
"  Martha,"  she  said,  "  my  comb's  down  there  ; 
I  was  too  weak  to  stoop  and  pick  it  up." 

I  have  seen  that  old,  broken  comb,  with  a 
large  piece  burned  out  of  it ;  and  have  thought 
it,  I  own,  more  pathetic  than  the  bones  of  the 
eleven  thousand  virgins  at  Cologne,  or  the  time- 
blackened  Holy  Face  of  Lucca.  Sad,  chance 
confession  of  human  weakness  ;  mournful  coun- 
terpart of  that  chainless  soul  which  to  the  end 


EMILY'S  DEATH. 


307 


maintained  its  fortitude  and  rebellion.  The  flesh 
is  weak.  Since  I  saw  that  relic,  the  strenuous 
verse  of  Emily  Brontes  last  poem  has  seemed  to 
me  far  more  heroic,  far  more  moving  ;  remem- 
bering in  what  clinging  and  prisoning  garments 
that  free  spirit  was  confined. 

The  flesh  was  weak,  but  Emily  would  grant  it 
no  indulgence.  She  finished  her  dressing,  and 
came  very  slowly,  with  dizzy  head  and  tottering 
steps,  down-stairs  into  the  little,  bare  parlor 
where  Anne  was  working  and  Charlotte  writing 
a  letter.  Emily  took  up  some  work  and  tried  to 
sew.  Her  catching  breath,  her  drawn  and  altered 
face,  were  ominous  of  the  end.  But  still  a  little 
hope  flickered  in  those  sisterly  hearts.  "  She 
gi'ows  daily  weaker,"  wrote  Charlotte,  on  that 
memorable  Tuesday  morning  ;  seeing  surely  no 
portent  that  this  —  this  !  was  to  be  the  last  of 
the  days  and  the  hours  of  her  weakness. 

The  morning  grew  on  to  noon,  and  Emily 
grew  worse.  She  could  no  longer  speak,  but  — 
gasping  in  a  husky  whisper  —  she  said  :  "  If  you 
will  send  for  a  doctor.  I  will  see  him  now ! " 
Alas,  it  was  too  late.  The  shortness  of  breath 
and  rending  pain  increased  ;  even  Emily  could 
no  longer  conceal  them.  Towards  two  o'clock 
her  sisters  begged  her,  in  an  agony,  to  let  them 
put  her  to  bed.  "  No,  no,"  she  cried  ;  tormented 
with  the  feverish  restlessness  that  comes  before 


308  EMILY  BRONTE. 

the  last,  most  quiet  peace.  She  tried  to  rise, 
leaning  with  one  hand  upon  the  sofa.  And  thus 
the  chord  of  life  snapped.     She  was  dead. 

She  was  twenty-nine  years  old. 

They  buried  her,  a  few  days  after,  under  the 
church  pavement ;  under  the  slab  of  stone  where 
their  mother  lay,  and  Maria  and  Elizabeth  and 
Branwell. 

She  who  had  so  mourned  her  brother  had  ver- 
ily found  him  again,  and  should  sleep  well  at 
his  side. 

<t>i\r)  fier  clvtov  Kelffo/J-ai,  <f>ikov  fiira. 

And  though  no  wind  ever  rustles  over  the  grave 
on  which  no  scented  heather  springs,  nor  any 
bilberry  bears  its  sprigs  of  greenest  leaves  and 
purple  fruit,  she  will  not  miss  them  now ;  she 
who  wondered  how  any  could  imagine  unquiet 
slumbers  for  them  that  sleep  in  the  quiet  earth. 
They  followed  her  to  her  grave,  her  old  father, 
Charlotte,  the  dying  Anne  ;  and  as  they  left  the 
doors,  they  were  joined  by  another  mourner, 
Keeper,  Emily's  dog.  He  walked  in  front  of  all, 
first  in  the  rank  of  mourners  ;  and  perhaps  no 
other  creature  had  known  the  dead  woman  quite 
so  well.  When  they  had  laid  her  to  sleep  in  the 
dark,  airless  vault  under  the  church,  and  when 
they  had  crossed  the  bleak  churchyard,  and  had 
entered  the  empty  house   again,   Keeper  went 


EMILVS  DEATH. 


309 


straight  to  the  door  of  the  room  where  his  mis- 
tress used  to  sleep,  and  lay  down  across  the 
threshold.  There  he  howled  piteously  for  many 
days  ;  knowing  not  that  no  lamentations  could 
wake  her  any  more.  Over  the  little  parlor  below 
a  great  calm  had  settled.  "  Why  should  we  be 
otherwise  than  calm  ? "  says  Charlotte,  writing  to 
her  friend  on  the  21st  of  December.  "  The  an- 
guish of  seeing  her  suffer  is  over  ;  the  spectacle 
of  the  pains  of  death  is  gone  by ;  the  funeral  day 
is  past.  We  feel  she  is  at  peace.  No  need  now 
to  tremble  for  the  hard  frost  and  the  keen  wind. 
Emily  does  not  feel  them." 

The  death  was  over,  indeed,  and  the  funeral 
day  was  past ;  yet  one  duty  remained  to  the 
heart-wrung  mourners,  not  less  poignant  than 
the  sight  of  the  dead  changed  face,  not  less 
crushing  than  the  thud  of  stones  and  clods  on 
the  coffin  of  one  beloved.  They  took  the  great 
brown  desk  in  which  she  used  to  keep  her  papers, 
and  sorted  and  put  in  order  all  that  they  found 
in  it.  How  appealing  the  sight  of  that  hurried, 
casual  writing  of  a  hand  now  stark  in  death  ! 
How  precious  each  of  those  pages  whose  like 
should  never  be  made  again  till  the  downfall  of 
the  earth  in  the  end  of  time  !  How  near,  how 
utterly  cut  off,  the  Past ! 

They  found  no  novel,  half-finished  or  begun, 
in  the  old  brown  desk  which  she  used  to  rest  on 


310  EMILY  BRONTE. 

her  knees,  sitting  under  the  thorns.  But  they 
discovered  a  poem,  written  at  the  end  of  Emily's 
life,  profound,  sincere,  as  befits  the  last  words 
one  has  time  to  speak.  It  is  the  most  perfect 
and  expressive  of  her  work :  the  fittest  monu- 
ment to  her  heroic  spirit. 

Thus  run  the  last  lines  she  ever  traced : 

"  No  coward  soul  is  mine, 
No  trembler  in  the  world's  storm-troubled  sphere ; 

I  see  heaven's  glories  shine, 
And  faith  shines  equal,  arming  me  from  fear. 

"  O  God,  within  my  breast, 
Almighty,  ever-present  Deity ! 

Life,  that  in  me  has  rest, 
As  I  —  undying  life  —  have  power  in  thee. 

"Vain  are  the  thousand  creeds 
That  move  men's  hearts  :  unutterably  vain  ; 

Worthless  as  withered  weeds, 
Or  idlest  froth  amid  the  boundless  main. 

"To  waken  doubt  in  one 
Holding  so  fast  by  thine  infinity ; 

So  surely  anchored  on 
The  steadfast  rock  of  immortality. 

"  With  wide-embracing  love 
Thy  spirit  animates  eternal  years, 

Pervades  and  broods  above, 
Changes,  sustains,  dissolves,  creates,  and  rears. 

"  Though  earth  and  man  were  gone, 
And  suns  and  universes  ceased  to  be, 

And  thou  wert  left  alone, 
Every  existence  would  exist  in  thee. 


EMILY'S  DEATH.  311 

"  There  is  not  room  for  Death, 
No  atom  that  his  might  could  render  void ; 

Thou  —  thou  art  Being,  Breath, 
And  what  thou  art  may  never  be  destroyed." 


FINIS  ! 

"  She  died  in  a  time  of  promise."     *• 

So  writes  Charlotte,  in  the  first  flush  of  her 
grief.  "  She  died  in  a  time  of  promise  ; "  hav- 
ing done  much,  indeed,  having  done  enough  to 
bring  her  powers  to  ripe  perfection.  And  the 
fruit  of  that  perfection  is  denied  us.  She  died, 
between  the  finishing  of  labor  and  the  award  of 
praise.  Before  the  least  hint  of  the  immortality 
that  has  been  awarded  her  could  reach  her  in 
her  obscure  and  distant  home.  Without  one 
success  in  all  her  life,  with  her  school  never 
kept,  her  verses  never  read,  her  novel  never 
praised,  her  brother  dead  in  ruin.  All  her  am- 
bitions had  flagged  and  died  of  the  blight.  But 
she  was  still  young,  ready  to  live,  eager  to  try 
again. 

"  She  died  in  a  time  of  promise.  We  saw  her 
taken  from  life  in  its  prime." 

Truly  a  prime  of  sorrow,  the  dark  mid-hour  of 
the  storm,  dark  with  the  grief  gone  by  and  the 
blackness  of  the  on-coming  grief.     With  Bran- 


FINIS. 


313 


well  dead,  with  her  dearest  sister  dying,  Emily- 
died.  Had  she  lived,  what  profit  could  she  have 
made  of  her  life  ?  For  us,  indeed,  it  would  have 
been  well ;  but  for  her  ?  Fame  in  solitude  is 
bitter  food ;  and  Anne  will  (die  in  May ;  and 
Charlotte  six  years  after ;  and  Emily  never  could 
make  new  friends.  Better  far  for  her,  that  lov- 
ing, faithful  spirit,  to  die  while  still  her  life  was 
dear,  while  still  there  was  hope  in  the  world, 
than  to  linger  on  a  few  years  longer,  in  loneli- 
ness and  weakness,  to  quit  in  fame  and  misery  a 
disillusioned  life. 

"  She  died  in  a  time  of  promise.  We  saw  her 
taken  from  life  in  its  prime.  But  it  is  God's 
will,  and  the  place  where  she  is  gone  is  better 
than  that  she  has  left." 

Truly  better,  to  leave  her  soul  to  speak  in  the 
world  for  aye,  for  the  wind  to  be  stronger  for 
her  breath,  and  the  heather  more  purple  from 
her  heart ;  better  far  to  be  lost  in  the  all-embra- 
cing, all-transmuting  process  of  life,  than  to  live 
in  cramped  and  individual  pain.  So  at  least, 
wrong  or  right,  thought  this  woman  who  loved 
the  earth  so  well.  She  was  not  afraid  to  die. 
The  thought  of  death  filled  her  with  no  perplex- 
ities, but  with  assured  and  happy  calm.  She 
held  it  more  glorious  than  fame,#  and  sweeter 
than  love,  to  give  her  soul  to  God  and  her  body 
to  the  earth.     And  which  of  us  shall  carp  at 


314  EMILY  BRONTE. 

the  belief  which  made  a  very  painful  life  con- 
tented ?  , 

"  The  thing  that  irks  me  most  is  this  shat- 
tered prison,  after  all.  I'm  tired  of  being  en- 
closed here.  I'm  wearying  to  escape  into  that 
glorious  world,  and  to  be  always  there ;  not  see- 
ing it  dimly  through  tears,  and  yearning  for  it 
through  the  walls  of  an  aching  heart;  but  really 
with  it  and  in  it.  You  think  you  are  better 
and  more  fortunate  than  I,  in  full  health  and 
strength  ;  you  are  sorry  for  me  —  very  soon  that 
will  be  altered.  I  shall  be  sorry  for  you.  I  shall 
be  incomparably  above  and  beyond  you  all." * 

Ah,  yes ;  incomparably  above  and  beyond. 
Not  only  because  of  the  keen  vision  with  which 
she  has  revealed  the  glorious  world  in  which  her 
memory  is  fresher  wind  and  brighter  sunshine ; 
not  only  for  that,  but  because  the  remembrance 
of  her  living  self  is  a  most  high  and  noble  pre- 
cept. Never  before  were  hands  so  inspired  alike 
for  daily  drudgery,  and  for  golden  writing  never 
to  fade.  Never  was  any  heart  more  honorable 
and  strong,  nor  any  more  pitiful  to  shameful 
weakness.  Seldom,  indeed,  has  any  man,  more 
seldom  still  any  woman,  owned  the  inestimable 
gift  of  genius  and  never  once  made  it  an  excuse 
for  a  weakness,  a  violence,  a  failing,  which  in 
other  mortals  we  condemn.     No  deed  of   hers 

1  '  Wuthering  Heights.' 


FINIS. 


315 


requires  such  apology.  Therefore,  being  dead 
she  persuades  us  to  honor ;  and  not  only  her 
works  but  the  memory  of  her  life  shall  rise  up 
and  praise  her,  who  lived  without  praise  so 
well. 


THE   END. 


University  Press :  John  Wilson  &  Son,  Cambridge. 


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THE  LIFE  OF  RICHARD  COBDEN.    By  John  Mor- 

ley.     i  vol.    8vo.    Cloth.     With  Steel  Portrait.    Price.   .  $3.00 

"  This  life  has  been  compared  to  Trevelyan's  '  Life  of  Macaulay.'  This  is  rather, 
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ground.  It  is  hardly  a  compliment  to  place  it  on  a  par  with  the  '  Life  of  Macaulay'  in 
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WILLIAM  WORDSWORTH  :  A  Biographical  Sketch, 

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given  by  these  poems  is  very  pleasant ;  the  precepts  for  life  here  are  sweet  and  noble ; 
the  promises  for  heaven  are  definite ;  they  appeal  directly  to  the  love  of  what  is 
known  as  pleasure  in  this  life,  and  that  must  be  renounced  in  this  life,  but  in  the  next 
it  may  be  enjoyed  to  the  uttermost  without  evil  consequences." — Boston  Daily 
Advertiser. 

ART  AND  NATURE  IN  ITALY.  By  Eugene  Ben- 
son.    i6mo.     Cloth.     Price, $1.00 

"Mr.  Benson's  long  residence  in  that  country  has  operated  to  imbue  his  mind  with 
the  spirit  of  the  region.  He  treats  con  amore  of  its  art  in  its  historical  and  in  its 
modern  aspects,  and  he  presents  its  scenes  of  nature  in  their  most  fascinating  form. 
Mr.  Benson  is  not  only  one  of  the  most  appreciative  of  students  and  observers,  but 
he  has  a  rare  grace  of  manner  as  well.  He  writes  little  of  late,  but  his  productions 
are  always  acceptable  to  cultivated  people."  —  Saturday  Evening  Gazette. 

"This  book  is  a  record  of  impressions  and  reflections  on  art  and  nature  in  Italy. 
The  great  beauty  and  the  historic  associations  of  the  country  are  set  forth  in  very 
pleasing  language  by  one  who  fully  appreciates  them.  He  particularly  describes 
those  portions  of  that  beautiful  land  in  which  its  most  distinguished  artists  have 
lived,  showing  how  its  natural  features,  its  enchanting  scenery,  must  have  had  a 
molding  influence  upon  their  tastes  and  their  works.  His  estimates  of  art  and  artists 
and  his  criticisms  are,  in  the  main,  just  and  satisfactory."  —  Western  Christian 
A  dvocate. 

NORSE  STORIES,  RETOLD  FROM  THE  EDDAS. 

By  Hamilton  W.  Mabie.     i6mo.     Cloth.     Price,    .    .    $1.00 

"  Is  one  of  the  most  charming  little  books  for  children  I  have  ever  seen.  The 
myths  are  splendidly  told,  and  every  household  in  America  ought  to  have  a  copy  of 
the  book."  —  Pro/.  R.  B.  Anderson. 

"The  old  Norse  stories  bear  being  told  again  and  again.  Mr.  Mabie  keeps  their 
freshness,  fascination  and  simplicity  in  his  new  version  of  them,  and  one  reads  with 
•mabated  pleasure  of  Odin's  search  for  wisdom,  of  the  wooing  of  Gerd,  and  of  all 
the  strange  adventures  of  Thor,  of  the  beautiful  Balder,  of  the  wicked  Loke,  and, 
best  of  all,  of  the  new  earth  that  was  created  after  long  years  of  darkness,  in  which 
there  was  no  sun,  no  moon,  no  stars,  no  Asgard,  no  Hel,  no  Jotunheim;  in  which 
gods,  giants,  monsters  and  men  were  all  dead  —  the  earth  upon  which  the  gods  look 
lovingly,  upon  which  men  are  industrious  and  obedient,  and  know  that  the  All-Father 
helps  them."  —  Boston  Daily  Advertiser. 


**#  Our  publications  are  for  sale  by  all  booksellers,  or  will  be  sent 
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ROBERTS  BROTHERS,  Boston. 


A    LITTLE    PILGRIM.      Reprinted    from    Macmillan's 

Magazine.     i6mo.     Cloth.     Red  edges.     Price,  ....    $  .75 

_  "An  exquisitely  written  little  sketch  is  found  in  that  remarkable  production,  'The 
Little  Pilgrim,'  which  is  just  now  attracting  much  attention  both  in  Europe  and 
America.  It  is  highly  imaginative  in  its  scope,  representing  one  of  the  world-worn 
and  weary  pilgrims  of  our  earthly  sphere  as  entering  upon  the  delights  of  heaven 
after  death.  The  picture  of  heaven  is  drawn  with  the  rarest  delicacy  and  refinement, 
and  is  in  agreeable  contrast  in  this  respect  to  the  material  sketch  of  this  future  home 
furnished  in  Miss  Stuart  Phelps's  well-remembered  'Gates  Ajar.'  The  book  will  be 
a  balm  to  the  heart  of  many  readers  who  are  in  accord  with  the  faith  of  its  author; 
and  to  others  its  reading  will  afford  rare  pleasure  from  the  exceeding  beauty  and 
affecting  simplicity  of  its  almost  perfect  literary  style." — Saturday  Evenitig Gazette. 
"  The  life  beyond  the  grave,  when  the  short  life  in  this  world  is  ended,  is  to  many 
a  source  of  dread  —  to  all  a  mystery.  'A  Little  Pilgrim'  has  apparently  solved  it, 
and,  indeed,  it  seems  on  reading  this  little  book  as  if  there  were  a  great  probability 
about  it.  A  soft,  gentle  tone  pervades  its  every  sentence,  and  one  cannot  read  it 
without  feeling  refreshed  and  strengthened."  —  The  Alta  California. 

THE  GREAT  EPICS  OF  MEDIEVAL  GERMANY. 
An  Outline  of  their  Contents  and  History.  By  George 
Theodore  Dippold,  Professor  at  Boston  University  and 
Wellesley  College.     i6mo.     Cloth.     Price, $1.50 

Professor  Francis  J.  Child,  of  Harvard  College,  says :  "  It  is  an  excellent  account 
of  the  chief  German  heroic  poems  of  the  Middle  Ages,  accompanied  with  spirited 
translations.  It  is  a  book  which  gives  both  a  brief  and  popular,  and  also  an  accurate, 
account  of  this  important  section  of  literature,  and  will  be  very  welcome  here  and  at 
other  colleges." 

"  No  student  of  modern  literature,  and  above  all  no  student  who  aims  to  under- 
stand the  literary  development  of  Europe  in  its  fullest  range,  can  leave  this  rich  and 
ample  world  of  early  song  unexplored.  To  all  such  Professor  Dippold's  book  will 
have  the  value  of  a  trustworthy  guide.  .  .  .  It  ha»  all  the  interest  of  a 
chapter  in  the  growth  of  the  human  mind  into  comprehension  of  the  universe  and  of 
itself,  and  it  has  the  pervading  charm  of  the  vast  realm  of  poetry  through  which  it 
moves."  —  Christian  Union. 


MY  HOUSEHOLD  OF  PETS.      By  Theophile  Gautier. 
Translated  from  the  French  by  Susan  Coolidge.     With 
illustrations  by  Frank  Rogers.     i6mo.     Cloth.     Price,      .     $1.25 

"This  little  book  will  interest  lovers  of  animals,  and  the  quaint  style  in  which 
M.  Gautier  tells  of  the  wisdom  of  his  household  pets  will  please  every  one.  The 
translator,  too,  is  happy  in  her  work,  for  she  has  succeeded  in  rendering  the  text  into 
English  without  loss  of  the  French  tone,  which  makes  it  fascinating.  These  house- 
hold pets  consisted  of  white  and  black  cats,  dogs,  chameleons,  lizards,  magpies,  and 
horses,  each  of  which  has  a  character  and  story  of  its  own.  Illustrations  and  a  pretty 
binding  add  to  the  attractions  of  the  volume.'  —  Worcester  Spy. 

"The  ease  and  elegance  of  Theophile  Gautier's  diction  is  wonderful,  and  the 
translator  has  preserved  the  charm  of  the  French  author  with  far  more  than  the 
average  fidelity.  '  My  Household  of  Pets  '  is  a  book  which  can  be  read  with  pleasure 
by  young  and  old.     It  is  a  charming  volume.  —  St.  Louis  Spectator. 


#**  Our  publications  are  for  sale  by  all  booksellers,  or  will  be  sent 
post-paid  on  receipt  of  advertised  price. 

ROBERTS   BROTHERS,  Boston. 


THE  JEAN  INGELOW  BIRTHDAY  BOOK.     With 

red-line  border  and  divisions,  1 2  illustrations  and  portrait. 

i6mo.    Cloth,  gilt  and  illuminated.     Price, $1.00 

Full  calf  or  morocco, $3-S° 

"  This  is  a  dainty  little  volume  having  a  selection  from  Jean  Ingelow  for  each  day 
of  the  year.  The  extracts  are  of  both  prose  and  verse.  There  are  graceful  illustra- 
tions for  each  month  suited  in  subject  to  the  season.  The  book  will  be  welcomed  by 
admirers  of  this  writer  and  must  prove  a  popular  gift-book  for  the  birthday  season." — 
Chicago  A  dvance. 

"We  have  seen  no  more  tasteful  book  this  year  than  '  The  Jean  Ingelow  Birthday 
Book,'  which  Messrs.  Roberts  Brothers  publish.  It  is  somewhat  larger  in  form  than 
are  the  birthday  books  with  which  the  public  is  familiar,  is  printed  on  very  fine  paper, 
and  has  a  page  with  the  usual  quotations  and  the  usual  blanks,  the  whole  encircled 
with  a  carmine  line  border,  the" date  of  the  days  of  the  months  being  printed  in  the 
same  color.  The  work  is  illustrated  with  handsome  engravings,  and  has  a  steel- 
engraved  portrait  of  Jean  Ingelow.  The  binding  is  areal  gem.  _  Nothing  could  well 
be  more  attractive  in  the  way  of  cloth  ornament  than  is  its  combination  of  design  and 
color."  —  Saturday  Evening  Gazette. 


UNDER    THE    SUE         By   Phil.    Robinson,    the    new 

English  Humorist.     With   a   Preface  by  Edwin   Arnold, 

author  of  "The  Light  of  Asia."      i6mo.      Cloth.      Price,  $1.50 

This  is  a  volume  of  essays,  humorous  and  pathetic,  of  incidents,  scenes,  and 
objects  grouped  under  the  heads:  Indian  Sketches,  The  Indian  Seasons,  Unnatural 
History,  Idle  Hours  under  the  Punkah. 

"Under  the  Sun,"  by  Phil.  Robinson,  is  one  of  the  most  delightful  of  recent 
books.  The  style  is  fascinating  in  its  strength  and  picturesqueness,  and  there  is  now 
and  then  a  delicious  quaintness  that  recalls  Charles  Lamb.  A  volume  such  as  this  is 
rare  in  our  day,  when  the  art  of  essay  writing  is  almost  lost  and  forgotten.  Fresh- 
ness, vigor,  humor,  pathos,  graphic  power,  a  keen  love  for  nature,  a  gentle  love  for 
animals,  and  a  pleasing  originality  are  among  the  more  charming  characteristics  of 
this  work,  which  maybe  read  again  and  again  with  renewed  satisfaction.  Its  scenes 
are  laid  in  India,  and  whether  the  author  discourses  of  the  elephant,  the  rhinoceros, 
some  bird  that  has  attracted  his  attention,  a  tree,  or  a  flower;  whether_ he  describes 
an  exciting  hunt,  or  tells  a  marvellous  story;  whether  he  moralizes  or  gives  free  rein 
to  his  fancy,  he  is  always  brilliant,  fascinating,  vivacious  and  masterly.  It  is  difficult 
to  write  of  this  remarkable  book  without  superlatives;  but  it  is  not  too  much  to  insist 
that  it  is  impossible  to  exaggerate  its  peculiar  merits,  or  to  bestow  too  large  a  share  of 
praise  upon  it.  It  is  not  a  book  for  the  few,  but  for  the  many,  and  all  will  find  delight 
in  its  perusal."  —  Saturday  Evening  Gazette. 


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NATURAL  RELIGION.  The  long-expected  book  by  the 
author  of  "Ecce  Homo."  Second  edition,  with  a  new 
explanatory  preface.  Uniform  with  "Ecce  Homo." 
i6mo.     Cloth.     Price, $l.2J 

"Sixteen  years  ago  'Ecce  Homo'  took  the  place  of  the  drawing-room  novel  in 
English  and  American  society,  and  was  the  best-read  book  of  the  day.  It  looked  at 
Jesus  Christ  through  the  eyes  of  the  modern  man  and  attempted  to  answer  the 
question :  What  was  Christ's  object  in  founding  the  society  which  was  called  by  his 
name,  and  how  is  it  adapted  to  attain  that  object?  It  drew  attention  to  the  way  in 
which  Christ  dealt  with  human  society  as  a  whole.  It  constructed  anew  the  kingdom 
of  God  in  the  world,  not  by  retracing  its  history  as  an  institution,  but  by  building  it 
up  from  the  affirmations  of  Christ  into  the  republic  of  God.  The  author  of  'Ecce 
Homo'  has  now  spoken  again  with  the  view  of  showing  Christ  as  the  creator  of 
modern  theology  and  religion,  or  rather  of  showing  how  far.the  republic  of  God,  as 
set  up  in  the  world  through  the  agency  of  Jesus  Christ,  fulfills  its  functions  in  the  last 
quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century.  The  bold  hand  that  stripped  from  the  name  of 
Christ  the  thousand  superstitions  that  surrounded  him,  here  deals  with  Christianity  as 
he  then  dealt  with  its  originator,  and  the  same  strong  criticism,  the  same  fearless 
assertion  of  fundamental  principles,  the  same  comprehensiveness  of  view,  the  same 
desire  to  explain  by  natural,  what  has  so  often  been  remanded  to  supernatural  forces^ 
the  same  grasp  of  the  ethical  convictions  of  men,  appears  in  '  Natural  Religion '  that 
startled  thinking  people  in  the  pages  of  '  Ecce  Homo.'  .  .  .  What  distinguishes 
the  author  of  'Ecce  Homo'  is  that,  in  his  present  criticism  of  Christianity,  he  is 
aiming  to  induce  the  leaders  of  Christianity  to  include  the  larger  truth  which  the 
world  has  consciously  gained  and  which  is  in  the  nature  of  a  divine  revelation  within 
the  sphere  of  Christian  truth.  .  .  .  The  freshest  and  most  constructive  criticism 
of  Christianity  that  has  yet  appeared."  —  Sunday  Herald. 


RARE  POEMS  OF  THE  SIXTEENTH  AND  SEV- 
ENTEENTH CENTURIES.  Collected  and  edited, 
with  Notes,  by  W.  J.  Linton.  One  volume.  i6mo. 
Parchment  cloth,  red  lettered.     Price, $2.00 

"  These  '  rare  poems '  are  not  to  be  found  in  any  anthology  accessible  to  general 
readers.  It  is  indeed  a  '  rare '  book  culled  from  the  world  garden  of  old  English  Song, 
and  in  the  accuracy  of  its  scholarship  and  the  clearness  of  its  contents  exceeds  any 
and  every  other  book  of  the  kind.  Some  ninety-odd  illustrations,  engraved  by  Mr. 
Linton,  give  additional  interest  to  this  beautiful  volume." 

"  This  is  one  of  the  charming  books  of  the  season.  It  is  an  excursion  into  the  by- 
paths of  early  poetical  literature,  and  the  true  lover  of  poetry  will  enjoy  the  sense  of 
seclusion  which  comes  from  the  companionship  of  poems  not  to  be  found  in  the 
popular  anthologies.  There  is  a  charm  about  these  old-time  verses  which  is  as  real 
as  it  is  impalpable.  They  strike  a  note  which  has  dropped  out  of  the  modern  scale ; 
we  have  much  notably  fine  music,  but  the  melody  of  the  old  poets  is  gone.  That  is 
not  saying  that  the  present  age  is  less  favored  than  that  represented  in  this  volume ; 
it  is  only  saying  that  they  are  different.  Mr.  Linton  has  culled  many  of  the  sweetest 
flowers  of  early  English  song,  and  has  embellished  them  with  dainty  devices  of 
illustration  so  entirely  felicitous  and  appropriate  that  they  seem  to  have  grown  out  of 
the  verse  itself.  Heywood,  Sidney,  Suckling,  Herrick,  all  the  sweet  singers  of  the 
age  are  represented  by  some  choice  poem.  The  selection,  arrangement,  illustration, 
and  the  concise  and  suggestive  notes,  give  unmistakable  evidence  of  a  trained  and 
scholarly  hand,  and  the  result  is  a  damty  and  beautiful  book  which  will  endear  itself 
to  all  lovers  of  English  song."  —  Christian  Union. 


**#  Our  publications  are  for  sale  by  all  booksellers,  or  will  be  sent 
post-paid  on  receipt  of  advertised  price. 

ROBERTS   BROTHERS,  Boston; 


WIT  AND  WISDOM  OF  DON  QUIXOTE. 

"Patch  Grief  with  Proverbs."  —  SJiakespeare. 
With  a  Bioij. -..phical  Sketch  of  Cervantes  and  illustrations. 
One  volume,  uniform  with  "  Wit  and  Wisdom  of  George 
Eliot."     Square    i6mo.      Cloth,  black   and  gilt  lettered. 
Price, $1.25 

"This  handsomely  bound  volume  is  what  it  purports  to  be,  a  compilation  of  the 
best  things  in  Don  Quixote.  The  book  will  be  of  especial  benefit  to  those  who  wish 
to  recall  in  conversation  or  writing  the  many  sensible  and  apt  words  of  the  famous 
knight  or  his  sturdy,  common-sense  squire,  Sancho  Panza.  To  this  end,  the  gen- 
era! 'Index'  and  '  Index  to  Proverbs '  will  be  found  of  great  service.  The  twenty- 
five  pages  devoted  to  the  biography  of  Cervantes,  the  author  of  Don  Quixote, 
written  by  Emma  Thompson,  add  to  the  value  of  the  book." 

"  In  certain  respects  this  volume  is  better  for  the  use  of  the  young  man  than  the 
complete  work,  as  it  does  not  contain  any  of  those  passages  in  which  prurient  igno- 
rance may  see  something  amiss,  and  even  those  who  know  the  original  well  may 
surely  be  content  to  take  this  book  up,  and  find  in  it  everything  which  they  would 
select  for  themselves  in  looking  through  the  familiar  pages.  A  biographical  sketch 
of  the  author,  an  index,  and  an  index  to  the  proverbs  add  to  the  value  of  the  work, 
which  is  bound  in  an  attractive  wav,  and  ought  to  be  one  of  the  favorite  gift-books 
among  persons  of  literary  taste.  —  Sunday  Budget. 


OUR     LIBERAL    MOVEMENT    IN     THEOLOGY, 

chiefly  as  shown  in  Recollections  of  the  History  of  Uni- 
tarianism  in  New  England.  By  Joseph  Henry  Allen, 
Lecturer  on  Ecclesiastical  History  in  Harvard  University. 
i6mo.     Cloth.     Price $1.25 

"  It  is  a  review  of  the  history  and  antecedents  of  New  England  Unitarianism, 
interspersed  with  interesting  personal  reminiscences,  and  ending  with  an  appreciation 
of  the  tendencies  of  modern  liberal  theology  and  a  forecast  of  the  future." — N.  Y. 
Tribune. 

"The  first  five  of  these  lectures  give  a  very  readahle  and  Interesting  sketch  and 
criticism  of  the  history  of  Unitarianism  in  New  England.  These  are  followed  by 
three  lectures,  the  subjects  of  which  are :  A  Scientific  Theology;  The  Religion  of 
Humanity  ;  and  The  Gospel  of  Liberalism.  The  book  is  a  valuable  and  instructive 
study  of  what  Unitarianism  is  and  how  it  came  to  be  what  it  is."  — New  Englander. 

"  The  chapters  are  well-composed  and  well-informing,  and  the  style  of  the  writer  is 
clear  and  engaging.  He  writes  of  that  in  which  he  believes,  and  does  not  allow  him- 
self to  drift  far  from  his  subject.  The  work  constitutes  a  very  fair  and  convenient 
hand-book  on  the  Unitarian  movement,  certainly  an  historical  movement,  and  one 
which  has  left  its  impress  upon  the  religious  thinking  of  all  denominations.  We 
.  welcome  the  book  as  a  just  and  entertaining  presentation  of  a  form  of  belief  which 
has  found  more  or  less  acceptance  among  us."  —  Standard,  Chicago. 


9*0  Our  publications  are  for  sale  by  all  booksellers,  or  will  be  sent 
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ROBERTS   BROTHERS,  Boston. 


THE   WISDOM    OF   THE-  BRAHMIN.     A   Didactic 

Poem.  Translated  from  the  German  of  Friedrich  Riick- 
ert.  By  Chas.  T.  Brooks.  Six  cantos.  i6mo.  Cloth. 
Price $1.25 

"The  Brahmin,"  says  the  translator,  "  is  a  poem  of  vast  range,  expressing  the 
world-wisdom  which  the  author  had  been  for  years  storing  up  in  his  large  heart,  and 
evolving  out  of  his  creative  soul."  Says  Dr.  Beyer,  in  his  Life  of  Riickert :  "  'The 
Wisdom  of  the  Brahmin  '  is  a  poetic  house-treasure  of  which  our  nation  may  justly 
be  proud.  So  much  has  been  said  and  sung  of  late  years  of  'The  Light  of  Asia,'  the 
'Sympathy  of  Religions,'  and  the  like,  that  the  present  seemed  to  be  an  auspicious 
moment  to  venture  a  volume  of  Riickert's  greatest  work." 

"  'These  twenty  books  are  a  sea  of  thoughts  and  contemplations  full  of  Brahminic 
tranquility  and  German  depth  and  fullness,  in  simple  gnomes,  sentences,  epigrams, 
parables,  fables  and  tales.'  Gottsschall  declares  the  work  to  be  '  a  poetic  treasure  of 
which  the  German  nation  may  justly  be  proud.'  The  translator,  speaking  of  his  own 
experiences,  says  the  poem  has  affected  him  as  'a  sparkling  flood  of  heart-searching 
and  soul-lifting  thought  and  sentiment,  such  as  no  other  work  within  our  knowledge 
has  ever  presented.'  "  —  Home  Journal. 


SOCRATES.  The  Apology  and  Crito  of  Plato,  and  the 
Phaedo  of  Plato.  Uniform  with  "Marcus  Aurelius," 
"Imitation  of  Christ,"  etc.  i8mo.  Flexible  cloth,  red 
edges.  Price,  50  cents  each.  Two  series  in  one  volume. 
Cloth,  red  edges.     Price,  75  cents. 

"  If,  as  is  strongly  asserted,  there  maybe  found  in  the  writings  of  Plato  all  the 
wisdom  and  learning  of  the  ancients,  as  well  as  the  treasure-house  from  which  all 
succeeding  writers  have  borrowed  their  best  ideas,  then  are  these  little  books  worth 
their  weight  in  gold,  for  they  contain  some  of  the  choicest  gems  to  be  found  in  the 
collected  works  of  the  famous  Greek  philosopher.  They  are  companion  volumes, 
the  text  being  taken  unabridged  from  Professor  Jewett's  revised  translation  of  Plato. 
They  tell  the  whole  story  of  the  trial,  imprisonment  and  death  of  Socrates.  The 
Apology  gives  the  defence,  the  Crito  relates  the  offer  of  escape,  the  Phaedo  describes 
the  last  hours.  The  more  studiously  and  the  more  frequently  these  books  are  read 
the  more  keen  will  be  the  appreciation  of  their  intellectual  and  moral.excellence." — • 
Providence  Journal. 


JEAN    INGELOW'S    NOVELS.       Off  the   Skelligs; 
Fated  to  be  Free;    Sarah  de  Berenger;    Don  John. 
A  new  edition.     4  vols.     i6mo.     Imitation  half  calf. 
Price #5-oo 


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